History repeats itself
by Ginjaa Ninjaa
Summary: Hashirama Vs Madara: It was a partnership that shook the world and left everything changed after the duo passed through; It forced clans from different countries to form villages unless they wanted to become extinct. What happens when history repeats itself and Naruto and Sasuke become frienemies?
1. I'm tired of being

There was always the chance of history repeating itself. Sometimes it turned out to be a good thing but generally, it was a bad thing.

Hashirama Senju becoming friends with Madara Uchiha as one of those pivotal moments in time even though neither of the two kids at the time knew what was going on.

With Naruto Uzumaki meeting up with Sasuke Uchiha at the pier, it was just like old times where neither of the two knew what would become of one such meeting.

Two kids were both going through a lot at the time and their friendship might have never formed if it wasn't for the blonde haired one out of the two to initiate the conversation. "Hey you wanna spar?" Naruto called out to Sasuke.

Sasuke turned around. Recently, his elder brother had murdered the entire clan and he had been having these feelings inside of him, just waiting to come out. The sound of a spar actually sounded quite good to the raven haired boy as he thought about it.

"Alright" was all Sasuke said as he turned around and got into what he thought was the Uchiha clan taijutsu style. He hadn't actually even been taught it yet so he was just going off of his memory from seeing his father do it once.

Naruto on the other hand didn't know what to do. He didn't know a stance but he knew just standing with his hands by his side wasn't going to be good enough. In the end, the blonde haired boy decided that he was going to simply copy Sasuke and try his best from there.

Naruto didn't have as much patience as the Uchiha and thus it was he who charged first. As he was running, Naruto pulled back his left hand and planned on punching the living daylights out of Sasuke Uchiha.

This was something that Sasuke didn't want to happen as he knew that getting punch in the face would hurt a lot. As he watched the punch closely, Sasuke waited and waited and then right when he thought it was the right time, he moved to the side.

Naruto's punch only barely managed to skim the t-shirt that Sasuke was wearing. This wasn't good enough in his opinion though as he followed it up by turning his body around and attempted to punch Sasuke with his other hand.

Sasuke had a similar idea in that punching now would be the right course of action. The timing was so perfect that Naruto and Sasuke's respective fists collided with their intended target at the same time.

The duo of aspiring ninja fell down onto the ground after getting hit for the first time. The pain was immense for the two seven year olds but as they slowly got up to their haunches, they shared one look and the fight was back on like Donkey Kong.

Naruto surprised Sasuke by charging from a crouched position and managed to tackle him back down to the ground. The scuffle ended with Naruto kneeling on top of Sasuke's stomach. grinning as he thought he was going to win given the position that he was in, Naruto threw a right punch. What he didn't expect was for Sasuke to catch his wrist and prevent his knuckles connecting with his face.

_Oh well, guess I'll try the left hand then. _Naruto thought to himself before launching his left hand right Sasuke's face. Sasuke however had correctly guessed what Naruto was going to do and in a feat of perception managed to grab the left wrist of Naruto before it hit him.

Now the duo of wannabe shinobi were locked in a stalemate. After a while of the stalemate, Sasuke figured out a way to break it. Using his knee, Sasuke raised it as powerfully as he could and managed to hit the back of Naruto.

Naruto grunted at the pain when he felt something collide into his back. It wasn't enough to stop him though as he was determined to win the fight. Willing his muscles with all of his might, Naruto's hands slowly closed the distance to Sasuke's face and managed to hit him.

It wasn't that hard but it still hurt the seven year old Sasuke as he hadn't ever taken a punch before today. As he didn't like the pain that he was feeling, Sasuke retaliated just like before and kneed Naruto in the back.

Naruto realised that he was taking more damage than he was dishing out. Although he hadn't been at the academy long enough to learn strategy, he knew that this wasn't a good thing if he wanted to win the fight. As he leant back, Naruto rested on Sasuke's legs so he didn't have any room to generate force when kneeing him.

Sasuke meanwhile started panicking. He didn't know what to do as Naruto had just taken his only offence out of the game. Thankfully for him though he saw Naruto wobble in the slightest of movements trying to keep his balance. When he saw this, Sasuke grinned as he saw his chance to turn the tides on the fight.

Rolling his hips and using his abdominal muscles whilst also attempting to throw Naruto to the side, Sasuke managed to flip Naruto off of his body. This was done so that both of them kids fighting were on the ground. Realising what could happen if the other got into the position Naruto was in just a while ago, they both got up as quickly as possible.

Sasuke was the first to get up and he kicked out at Naruto. He didn't have good balance just yet so he couldn't get the height on the kick that he would have liked but Sasuke's kick managed to connect with Naruto's thigh.

"Ahh." Naruto cried out in pain but it seemed as if the look on his face turned to one of determination when this happened instead of agony. Naruto in retaliation gave his own kick which connected with Sasuke's thigh.

Not wanting to seem weak at the fact that he couldn't take what his opponent, Sasuke applied a determined look to his face before he gave another kick, this time with his other leg.

When Naruto tried to return the dick measuring contest, Sasuke managed to break suite and jump out of the way just in time. Naruto didn't like this one bit because as soon as his foot landed on the ground he charged after Sasuke wanting to punch him right in the kisser.

This time around Naruto connected with his haymaker and it sent Sasuke a few steps back before he managed to correct his feat. As he planted his foot down on the ground, Sasuke used the momentum he had and gave a punch back. He too managed to hit the desired target of Naruto's face.

It seemed like whatever one did, the other wanted to copy them as Naruto stumbled back a few steps. Seeing this as a good opportunity to do some damage, Sasuke started running towards Naruto. The next punch hit and unfortunately for the blonde haired boy, Naruto didn't have the balance to stay on his feet.

As he fell on his arse, Naruto had the presence of mind to focus on the fight instead of the pain he was feeling. Sasuke meanwhile was in the process of stomping Naruto but the blonde managed to kick the back of Sasuke's only knee which was on the ground.

This manoeuvre caused Sasuke to fall to the ground and he jolted his elbows when he used them as the first point of contact with the ground. As he got up, Naruto got up and stomped right on the lower back of Sasuke.

"Ahh!" he cried out as the pain from this was worse than any previously inflicted.

Seeing that he had elicited a response from Sasuke, Naruto thought that he was on the verge of victory. Jumping in the air, Naruto used his hamstrings so the first point of contact with whatever was beneath would be his kneecaps.

At the last second Sasuke barely managed to move out of the way and this caused Naruto to take the full brunt of the shockwaves right at his knee caps. "Ow…" Naruto complained as he got up off of the ground and rubbed his knees.

When he looked up he saw Sasuke there panting for breath. "I'm *pant* really glad that *pant* you agreed to spar with me Sasuke." Naruto said with a big grin on his face.

For the first time since the massacre, there was a smile on the face of Sasuke. Admittedly, he didn't think that this would be that fun. The surprise though was the fact that Naruto was as far as he could tell, just as skilled as himself and that made for a very interesting fight. "Yeah, so am I." Sasuke said as he responded to Naruto's statement.

"How 'bout we step it up a notch." Naruto questioned to which Sasuke had a look of shock on his face. He thought that they were going at top notch, he didn't think that there was another notch to go to. That being said, if there was another notch to go to then he would do it because after all, how could he Kill Itachi if he couldn't even beat Naruto?

What Sasuke didn't know was that Naruto was bluffing. He was almost on his last legs but he wanted to prove that he was capable of hanging with the class' best up and coming ninja. After all, how could he become the best if he couldn't beat the best?

Just like the start of the fight, Naruto charged head first at Sasuke with his little legs carrying him just that little bit faster thanks to the adrenaline running through his body.

Seeing what Naruto was trying to do, Sasuke planned on doing the same thing. He didn't know it but he didn't think it would be this easy seeing what moves people were doing.

Having dodged the attack of Naruto, Sasuke attempted to retaliate but Naruto had seen this coming. It was all part of his plan and he quickly followed up with a kick at Sasuke. When that didn't land he continued on with an elbow and then a knee. Each attach was becoming progressively faster and faster.

Dodge, dodge and block was what Sasuke had been doing but there didn't seem to be an end to it as Naruto kept up the relentless pressure. Eventually the blonde haired boy managed to crack through the defences of Sasuke and he got what he thought was a clean punch right into the nose of Sasuke Uchiha.

Said boy panicked immediately right before the impact of the punch. It was on instinct that right as the punch was about to hit that Sasuke's body did whatever it could to get out of the way of the hit.

The prematurely unlocked sharingan from before during the massacre paved the way for Sasuke to fully unlock the sharingan with one tomoe in each eye by channelling chakra unintentionally into his eyes, hoping to the mitigate the damage.

Unfortunately for him, it didn't work as he copped the full brunt of the attack right in the schnoz. Sasuke closed his eyes as he fell to the ground and hit his head on the dirt beneath him.

Despite the pain that he was in, Sasuke knew, in the depths of his mind that if he didn't get back up right away, there was only going to be more pain coming his way.

As he opened up his eyes, Sasuke saw yet another punch coming his way but somehow, it seemed as if time slowed down and he managed to get out of the way. Naruto immediately stopped when he saw this but not because Sasuke had dodged his attack. There was something else that had taken his attention and that was the fact that Sasuke's eyes had gone from black to red and black.

"What happened to your eyes Sasuke? They went all weird." Naruto called out to which Sasuke was confused, he had no idea what had happened to his eyes. It was then that he felt something running down his nose and realised that it was blood. Quickly wiping it off on his sleeve and got back into his stance ready for the next round.

"Nah, I'm spent and by the looks of things you are too Sasuke. You should really go over to the water, stop the bleeding and check your eyes in the water." Naruto said to which Sasuke nodded. He was grateful for the fight being over although disappointed at the fact that in his mind he had lost.

As he went over to the water, Sasuke held the bridge of his nose with two fingers on either side stopping the blood flow. Three minutes later and once he was sure that there was no more blood coming out, Sasuke reached down and splashed some water getting rid of all the evidence that he ever had a blood nose.

Once all of it was gone and the water had stopped rippling, Sasuke got a good, clean look at his reflection on the water's surface. Instantly, the Uchiha knew what Naruto was talking about when his eyes went red. _The sharingan! I finally unlocked it!_ Sasuke thought to himself with utter glee. If the smile that was on his face during the fight with Naruto, the one on it afterwards utterly trounced it.

Testing it as he wanted to make sure that he wasn't just seeing things, Sasuke tried his best to take the chakra from his eyes even though he didn't think he was using any. It took a few goes but the third time was the charm and Sasuke's eyes returned back to normal. When he decided to make doubly sure that he had properly activated it and not just partially, Sasuke tried activating it on his own accord. Like before it took a few goes as he didn't have much practice with controlling his chakra but eventually he got it.

The grin that was on his face got even larger if that was somehow possible.

When he deactivated it this time, he got a bit more proficient at the act and it only took him two tries to get it done. When he turned around, he saw Naruto standing there awkwardly. Deciding that it was probably best if he offered an explanation to the blonde haired boy, Sasuke went about doing that.

"I activated my sharingan."

"What's that?" Naruto curiously questioned.

It was at this point that Sasuke realised he couldn't criticize Naruto for asking this question. He probably didn't come from a clan family like he did and they hadn't been taught it yet at the academy.

"Certain clans have special abilities passed down from mother to son. Our one is called the sharingan and it makes our eyes look like this." As Sasuke said this, he attempted to activate his sharingan. It showed how he was getting better when he activated it first go although he only barely managed to get it working for a few seconds. Once that time was up, he noticed it going away and he felt really weak.

He remembered hearing from his mum a while back about using too much chakra and how it makes you weak. _This is that then…_Sasuke thought to himself.

"Oh… man I wish I had some super cool thing like that, I'd be so awesome if I did." Sasuke didn't know how to respond when Naruto said this. Instead there formed an awkward silence for a few minutes before Sasuke spoke up.

In this time Sasuke had been thinking about how Naruto had managed to activate his sharingan. He was under no illusions that if he hadn't accepted this fight, then it wouldn't have happened any time soon. That was something he was very thankful for and wanted to properly thank the blonde haired boy for.

He also got benefits since he would get a training partner who would be at his level and also provide someone to help keep him motivated. If there was no one he could compare himself to then he knew that eventually, he would become less intense when it came to training.

Finally if all that wasn't enough, Sasuke remembered his mum once upon a time saying that it would be good for him to make some friends. He didn't really want to at the time but now that she was gone, he wanted to do everything she ever said to him.

"Naruto, do you want to train with me after each day we go to the academy?" Sasuke stammered out as this wasn't something that he was used to doing.

Naruto became guarded when Sasuke said this and the raven haired boy didn't know what was going to happen. "Why, why would you let me train with you? No one's ever nice to me so why would you be?" Naruto questioned out loud. Internally though, he was really excited as he knew that not only could this be a good chance to become a stronger shinobi but more importantly a chance to make a friend.

He had heard what had happened to Sasuke's family and whilst he was sad for Sasuke, he was kind of grateful that there were no parents to tell Sasuke who he could and couldn't make friends with. All of the other times he had tried to make friends, once their parents found out, they immediately put an end to all potential friendships.

"I want to thank you for helping me get my sharingan. Also, with you as my training partner, you can keep me focused and I can keep you focused. The competition can help us grow into better fighters."

When he heard this Naruto grinned. Whilst he knew that Sasuke might have wanted to help him out as a way of saying thanks, the fact that Sasuke said that he would also benefit from the friendship made Naruto sure that Sasuke was genuine. I mean why do something like that if you are only going to throw it away? It would hurt Sasuke's development as a shinobi just as much.

"Sure thing Sasuke, I'll meet you at school but now I have to go home and get some food, I'm starving! See ya!" Naruto responded before he turned around and ran home. There was the biggest possible in the history of humankind smile on the face of Naruto Uzumaki as he ran home as he had made his first friend as far as he was concerned.

The raven haired Uchiha for his part was thinking that maybe having a friend would alleviate some of the loneliness he was feeling.

**The next day**

"I hate how everyone gives her anything and everything she could ever want and more. Just because she's the daughter of the late Yondaime Hokage, it doesn't mean that everyone should treat her like kami-sama." Naruto complained to his new friend Sasuke Uchiha as they sat underneath a tree, eating lunch.

The person who Naruto Uzumaki was talking about was none other than Naruko Namikaze. He hated everything she represented but more importantly he hated how much they looked like carbon copies of one another. The only difference being that she had three whisker like marks on each cheek.

When he heard this, Sasuke didn't know what to say without sounding like a hypocrite. Ever since the Uchiha massacre, everybody in Konoha had been treating him like a prince. Sure he didn't ask for it but he didn't exactly tell them to stop when they kept giving him free things. In the end he decided the safest thing to say was a simple "Yeah."

"It just makes so me mad how people like her get everything handed to her on a silver platter while people like me hav'ta struggle for every single thing we get." Naruto said as he clenched his fists into the grass below.

He didn't know why but whenever he put his body on any form of plant life, life always seemed better. They just seemed so full of life and never wilted in the face of danger. It also kind of helped how he somehow had the magic touch when it came to plants. Naruto had a special skill that only he knew about where plants on the verge of death could be healed to perfect health just by touching them.

He didn't want to tell anyone, not even his new friend Sasuke as it could get out to the masses. There was a real chance that they would do something to him that would make him even more of an outcast than what he already was.

_I don't even know why everyone hates me. What did I ever do make everyone treat me like trash? I don't get it. _Naruto thought to himself as he ran his hands through the blades of grass.

Before he could delve any deeper into internal thoughts about how the world wasn't fair, the bell rang which signified that class was now back in session. With a sigh, Naruto got up from the tree he was resting against. He thought that he was weird for even thinking it but it seemed as if the roots of the tree were trying to pull him back down or at least preventing him from leaving.

_At least I have a friend now to make this a little less unbearable and I can't wait till we can get started on real training. _What Naruto and Sasuke didn't know was that the other was thinking the same thing at the same time.

It was the start of a friendship between two people that would once again change the shape of the world that they lived in.

**Author's note:**

**I deleted the story called Uchiha Honour as that story was too focused on Sasuke and didn't allow any real development outside of Sasuke with the way I started it.**

**This is a remake of that story with a revised plot and more characters introduced from the beginning which creates a lot more plot devices for me to use.**


	2. What you want me to be

The only difference between now and then when it came to Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki was the fact that last time, they were fighting on normal ground. This time around, they were fighting on top of the lake's surface. They had only just recently managed to get the hang of water walking two weeks ago, but this newfound test for the two of them was something that Naruto and Sasuke were determined to master.

There were a few occasions where there was the occasional slip up and loss of chakra control on the water's surface and this was a time where the other capitalized. They were both as good as each other though so in the end it worked out even.

That was the thing. Throughout all of their spars with one another, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto never had a clear cut winner. Each of them ended with a stalemate where neither could go on. Even when more things got added onto the table like increased speed, power and even weapons such as training swords, blunt shuriken and Kunai, they were still equals.

It was something that pissed both of them off but they knew that the other wasn't going to become worse so that meant that they themselves had to become that much better. When Sasuke said having a training partner would push them, he didn't know how right he was.

Admittedly, Sasuke knew that he wouldn't have been water walking at the age of eight years old had it not been for Naruto. He would have learnt leaf floating just like the academy told them to do and when he completed it first, which he would, he would rest on his laurels thinking he was the best.

"I think it's time that we go to the next level of our training Naruto." Sasuke commented once they reached the pier.

"Uhh sure, but what's that?" Naruto responded with a confused expression on his face.

"Well I want to learn more Uchiha clan techniques. We were the strongest clan in history so I want to become as strong as that." Sasuke said. Naruto didn't see anything wrong with that apart from the fact that it was unfair that he didn't have a clan to be like. It was then that he got an idea.

"Alright but only if I get to go through all your stuff on the Senju clan." Naruto said and even though he knew he had no authority on this, he hoped that the Uchiha would allow him to anyway.

"Okay… why though?" Sasuke questioned. There was a curious expression on his face.

"Well the Uchiha clan had only one other clan which could rival them and that was the Senju clan. If I want to be really strong then I have to learn from the best."

Sasuke took the comment that the Senju as an insult. "Why not just learn the from the Uchiha scrolls?"

Realising that he could have possibly insulted his friend, Naruto followed up rectifying the situation. "I can't learn much from the Uchiha clan since most of your stuff is based on the Sharingan and I don't have it.

The Senju clan however didn't have as many bloodlines so all of their stuff is something that a person like me can use." Once Naruto explained his reasoning, Sasuke didn't see a problem with things.

"Oh, alright then, yeah you can go through our library and you can use anything you find as long as you put it back once you're done with it." Sasuke said in an offhanded manner. He actually didn't see anything wrong with it because if Naruto became weak simply because he didn't have access to stuff, then it would be such a waste for his friend's potential.

"Yatta!" Naruto called out with excitement. He couldn't wait to get started on his training.

**The next day**

He was pretty spent from all of the training that he had done earlier in the morning but Naruto was confident that he could make it throughout the day without any hassle.

As he walked into the academy he saw his friend sitting down next to the window seat. As he took his seat next to Sasuke, he heard a resigned sigh from two girls.

_Good, they remembered that they can't take my spot just because of some little crush they have on my friend. _He remembered the time that they tried to boss him out of his seat. That didn't end well with Sasuke coming to his defence even though he could have handled the situation himself as far as he was concerned.

"Alright class, today, we are going to begin with some sparring practice. I would like for you to get out of your seats and follow me to the oval." Some of the girls and one guy named Shikamaru Nara complained at this but they all did what they were told and headed out to the field.

"Okay class, the first fight will be between Kiba Inuzuka and Akasha Yakido." It wasn't a fair fight. Kiba completely outclassed the girl in every facet of the fight and it was only half a minute into it that the instructor had to call an end to the fight.

"The next fight will be between Sasuke Uchiha and Choji Akimichi." Although Choji had training thanks to the fact that he came from a clan, the gulf in class between Sasuke Uchiha and himself was just as big as the previous fight.

In the previous fight, Kiba took the initiative to start the fight. Sasuke chose not to do that and had decided that the onus was up to his opponent to start the fight.

Unfortunately, the rather plump child had issues with injuring people. He had hang ups on hurting his comrades. Eventually it took a bit of encouragement from his best friend Shikamaru for Choji to eventually get in the right mood for the fight.

In a rather timid fashion, threw a punch aimed at Sasuke's face.

This was the first time that Sasuke had sparred someone other than Naruto. To say the least, he was disappointed. The gulf in class between himself and Choji didn't matter all that much in his opinion. What he hated though was that his opponent didn't want to be there.

Angry that his opponent wasn't taking this seriously, Sasuke dodged the punch at the last second, got inside the guard of Choji and launched a jab to stomach. the raven haired Uchiha followed this up with an uppercut to the exact same spot before finishing off the combination move by dropping his elbow on the bent over Choji's neck.

He didn't move from the ground.

When the teacher saw how just damage Sasuke had just done, he immediately rushed over to see if his student was okay. He was bleeding from the nose but apart from that, the teacher couldn't see any more damage done.

After instructing Choji to hold the bridge of his nose to stem the bleeding, the teacher looked over at one of his students. "Ino, I want you to take Choji to the nurse's office to make sure that there is nothing else wrong."

"Okay sensei." The girl said without question. Said girl was in a state of two minds though. On one hand she was sad to see her family friend hurt but on the other, she had just witnessed her favourite Sasuke-kun doing something really cool.

As all of this was happening, Sasuke walked over and stood next to his friend. "That was really boring. I bet that this is only going to be interesting when we fight each other. Even then I don't see why we can't do it after school where we can go all out instead of holding back."

It was a testament to the friendship between the two where Sasuke said more than three words a sentence.

Naruto whole heartedly agreed with him though. "Yeah, I mean what's the point of going all out when it only takes a little bit of effort to be the best, in terms of the academy that is." As far as he was concerned, the training that he did with Sasuke was much harder than what they did at school. This was the same place that was supposed to be preparing for the real world. Just the thought of the fact that, had Sasuke not offered to come train with him, then he would be unaware of much better training methods.

"Next up is Sakura Haruno and Hinata Hyuga."

Naruto and Sasuke watched this fight with anticipation. Maybe there was a girl who was actually serious about either going after boys or going after attention. They were solely basing this on the fact that the girl came from one of the prominent clans of Konoha. Unfortunately for them, their hopes were dashed when they saw just how timid and unwilling to fight the girl was.

As it turned out, the last fight of the day was Naruto's. when he found out who he would be up against, he grinned. His opponent was none other than Konoha's spoiled princess Azula Namikaze. Well that was he referred to her as. Everyone else barring his best friend referred to her as Konoha's Princess.

With the two of them staring one another down. Azula took this as the chance to make a statement. "I'm going to become the first female Hokage dattebayo!"

Naruto on the other hand wondered what the hell that this had to do with him. Instead he just stared at the girl in front of him with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Begin the fight."

The second that the teacher said this, Naruto sprinted off from where he once stood right at Azula. The blonde haired girl wasn't prepared for this as she didn't think anyone would have the gall to hit her since she was the princess.

Naruto didn't have any hang ups when it came to that though and he punched her right in the face.

Bumbling back a few steps, Azula tried her best to mitigate the damage and get back into the stance that Ebisu-sensei had taught her. Azula raised her fists up to her head and blocked the next punch with her forearms.

Seeing the defence she had, Naruto swept her legs out from underneath her forcing the girl to land on her back. Thanks to experience fighting Sasuke constantly, he knew a position that was really hard to get out of.

Jumping down, Naruto dropped his knee right into the abdomen of his opponent. Said opponent gasped for her breath as the hit winded her. Naruto switched his position so he mounted Azula with one knee on either side of her hips.

Not letting up, Naruto gave a quick jab which went through the defences of Azula and connected right with her jaw. The second punch with his stronger right arm was a hook and thus delivered more power as he incorporated his back and chest muscles into the punch.

Azula's arms hit the floor, her eyes rolled up into her head and her legs went limp. It was obvious to the teacher that Azula, much to his surprise had gone unconscious without even offering a single punch in defence.

As he realised what was happening and Naruto didn't seem like he intended to stop punching the unconscious form of Azula Namikaze, the chunin proctor quickly ran over, pushed Naruto off of the girl and called the fight over. "I have to go and deliver Azula to the infirmary. I am ordering you to go back to your seats and wait for me to arrive." The teacher authoritatively stated to his students.

Most of the students nodded at this and started headed back to their seats inside the classroom. That was until six boys who had seen the damage that Naruto had done to their beloved princess all nodded at one another. Getting up in a group, They all stared directly at Naruto who was looking the other way.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw the group of six heading towards his friends with looks that he didn't like. "Naruto, turn around."

Hearing the voice of his best friend and that it was serious, Naruto instantly turned around. In all honesty, he wasn't that surprised with what he saw.

"Walk away Sasuke, this doesn't concern you." The apparent leader of the group said in an attempt to take control over the situation.

Despite the fact that he and Sasuke had been friends for just over a year, Naruto still had insecurities about the fact that friends would leave him. "No, you're more than welcome to try and hurt my friend but the second you attempt to fight him, I will join in and we will hurt you a million times more than you could ever hurt us."

Sasuke boldly claimed to which Naruto smiled. Previously, he didn't know what it felt like to have someone watching your back but he did now and it was the greatest feeling in the world.

The bully was a little put off by this speech but looked around and saw that he still had his five friends beside him. "Oh yeah, well we still have the numbers advantage so we can beat them!" he called out.

It was then that there was a chant of "Fight, fight, fight" which one of the kids nearby started. Soon enough everyone in the class surrounded the eight ninjas in training in a circle leaving them to fight in the pit.

Sharing a look with his friends, all six of them charged at Naruto and Sasuke. Sasuke was tempted to use his sharingan but then he decided not to. If Naruto was going through this and he didn't have a sharingan to use, then he wasn't going to be a cop out and use his.

Sasuke Uchiha jumped out of the way of the first attacker. Naruto on the other hand merely moved to the side and counted with a punch of his own. Said punch sent him stumbling back a few steps. Naruto didn't any time to react at although as the next person came up to hit him. The blonde haired potential genin managed to dodge the punch but unfortunately he couldn't dodge the final guy's kick. Thankfully for Naruto's sake, this kid did a straight forward toe punt and didn't generate much force at all.

Sasuke meanwhile after having dodged the first academy student punched the second one. As he dodged the third, the first one came up from his side and punched him in the ribs.

When Naruto saw the hit that Sasuke took, it made him angry. His best friend didn't have to go through this and yet he was willing to. This wasn't a spar, this was the first proper fight that they had ever been in and despite the fact that they were outnumbered, Naruto was determined to come out on top.

Remembering what he had just been reading up on using chakra to enhance your taijutsu, Naruto started channelling it into his limbs. As far as he was concerned they felt really strong almost like a rock and yet they were really flexible and fluid. The feeling that he was getting wasn't something that he was going to complain about and Naruto gave his own kick back to the person who kicked him.

The difference though was that Naruto also used his hamstrings, glutes and hip flexor muscles to generate a whole lot more force. The speed in which his whole entire body moved was also faster thanks to the chakra running through his muscles. This meant that when the ankle connected with the hip bone of his enemy, a substantial amount of damage had been done, so much so that he dropped to the ground, clutching at his stomach.

Sasuke noticed what Naruto did and how that helped him. In a split second he decided to do the same. The feeling going throughout his body was euphoric in the sense that he felt as if he was a lot faster, stronger and even had much better reflexes.

As he saw the second attack coming straight for his ribs, Sasuke dodged it and headed for one of the other ninjas in training who wasn't paying one hundred per cent attention.

This was all Sasuke needed as he gave a powerful punch right into the kids jaw which sent him straight to the ground. When one of the other bullies saw the damage that had been done to his friend, he got nervous. That being said though, what would happen if he backed out now would be far worse than taking a punch or two right now.

With that in mind, the ninja to be went to punch Naruto. Unfortunately, Naruto with his muscles incredibly limber like bamboo and dodged the attack. Springing on his foot, Naruto did a back flip over the one of the bullies. As he stood right behind his enemy, Naruto cracked the guy in the back of the head; he fell flat on his face.

"1 down, 5 to go." Naruto said with a look of the upmost of confidence on his face. Sasuke wasn't happy when he heard this. It meant that Naruto had succeeded him in terms of the time it took to beat his opponents.

Seeing this as a competition from now on, Sasuke sped off to his next target and kicked him high up on the arm. The raven haired Uchiha quickly followed this up with a punch to the face powerful enough to knock him down to the ground.

"2 down, 4 to go." Sasuke said in a bland tone of voice; it was almost as if he this was as simple as a run in the park.

As this was happening, Naruto had manoeuvred himself to a point where he gave one of his opponents an uppercut right into the stomach. with the child bent over his fist, Naruto gave a rather brutal jumping knee kick to his face. There was enough power in the attack that when it connected with the jaw of the enemy, there was a cracking sound and also flung him powerfully to land the back of his head first into the ground.

"3 down, 3 to go."

It was at this point that the leader of the group of bullies realised just what he had gotten himself into. It was clear to him that if they could win when they had three times the people, they wouldn't win now that half of their numbers had been reduced.

Thankfully for the bully, it was at this time that the teacher arrived from having sending Azula to the infirmary. Much to his shock when he went into his classroom, none of them were there. Wondering what could have possibly happened, the teacher went back to where he last remembered seeing his students.

When he got outside he found all of them circulating around something. _This better not be a fight when I wasn't here to supervise it! They'll have my head for this!_ "What is going on here!?" The teacher questioned loud enough so that he stopped everything that was going on. When he got a good look at things, he saw that there had indeed been a fight going on.

When he saw that it was the pariah of the village, he knew that Naruto had done something wrong.

"This fight is over! Yoshida, you and your friends, take the injured to the infirmary. I will deal with you six later." Once the teacher made sure that this happened, he turned to his other students. "Now I will escort all of you back to our classroom. Do not try to start something or there will be very severe punishments. Do I make myself clear?" When the response that he got wasn't the one that he wanted, the teacher made sure to repeat himself until he got the right one.

"Yes Sensei"

Once all of the students were sitting in the classroom, the teacher went to the front of the desk. "Naruto and Sasuke, you will be coming with me to the principal's office to sort this out." As he said this, the teacher created a shadow clone to watch over his class whilst he handled the two trouble makers.

They took their time but eventually Naruto and Sasuke made their way to the front of the class. As they followed their teacher, they shared a look and knew that despite what would happen, they didn't regret for a second doing what they did.

Having seen it in TV shows that he got to watch when passing a store, Naruto offered his hand out in a closed fist. Sasuke didn't know what to make of it until he too remembered something that he had seen a few shinobi in his clan do before their passing.

It was at this moment that the fist bump between Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha started.

**With the principal**

"It's been an honour finalizing the academy curriculum for the next four years with you Hokage-sama." The principal said whilst bowing to the revered old man.

"Oh It's not that big of a deal Kaori-san haha, the academy isn't changing so it didn't take that long at all to go through everything." The Hokage said in a jovial fashion.

Before the principal could continue on any further, there was a knock on the door. Grumbling as he didn't want to be interrupted with the meeting, the principal looked over to the Hokage. When he saw a nod, the man asked who it was.

"Sir, it is me Higurashi, I have two students who started a fight with six other pupils. I'd like to bring them here for questioning with you so that we could decide on an appropriate punishment." Higurashi said to which the principal held his head in his hand.

"Actually, I'd like to see this if you don't mind me." Hiruzen Sarutobi stated to his subordinate.

Admittedly, he didn't want to sort this out but because the Hokage was here and wanted it to be done, his hands were tied. "Okay then Higurashi, send them in and return to your class. Once everything is sorted out here, I will send these troublesome students back to your class personally."

"Thank you Kaori-sama, right away Kaori-sama." Higurashi said as he opened the door and sent the two children into the principal's office.

When the two kids walked into the room, Hiruzen Sarutobi almost choked on his own spit. Right there in front of him was replica of a young Minato Namikaze.

Quickly schooling his features, Sarutobi turned to the principal. "It's been great talking to you Kaori-san; I've just realised other important matters to attend to." Hiruzen called out and disappeared in a shunshin before the principal of the academy could even say goodbye.

What none of the people in the room didn't know was that Hiruzen Sarutobi had chosen to remain nearby although under a jutsu which none of the people in the room would be able to detect him using.

When he was sure that his jutsu was activated, Hiruzen started reminiscing over past decisions that he had made. A lot of them he was not proud to have made but he thought that in all honesty each every one of them were made with the majority of Konoha's best interests at heart.

The same could be said for Azula Namikaze and Naruto Uzumaki.

The first time he found out that Kushina Uzumaki was carrying twins was when she gave birth during the Kyubi attack. He had no idea that she was carrying two children inside of her until he saw her dying right before her eyes.

What was interesting though was that when he found out that Minato had split the chakra of the Kyubi into two halves, he expected each baby to have one of those halves. He didn't expect for Minato to take one to the grave with him and leave the Yang chakra for his daughter.

This caused a lot of potential headaches and Hiruzen knew that things would be much easier if Naruto had one half and Azula had the other.

It created a whole host of problems. Would Konoha as a whole vindicate the jinchuuriki child causing her to hate the village and leave? That simply wasn't an option. Would it cause everyone to treat Naruto like shit causing the son of the Yondaime Hokage to go to a different village and recreate the clan in another village's name? Add to that the possibility of Azula siding with her brother and leaving the village.

Hiruzen was a very realistic person. Of course he wanted for Naruto and Azula to be together with everything being fine and dandy. That though was a pipe dream and he would be an absolute fool for planning for something to go wrong which always seemed to happen.

There were a whole host of things that could potentially go wrong and when it came to such a high profile case, Hiruzen Sarutobi wasn't going to take any chances.

When he made the decision to separate the two siblings at birth, he admittedly thought that he would be giving both of them the chance to live their lives without any hatred. He didn't expect for Naruto to become a scapegoat because he had the Kyubi sealed inside of him. Hiruzen quickly tried to put the rumour out but then someone questioned who the new Kyubi jinchuuriki was and the Sandaime Hokage was put in a bind. Eventually he decided that for the greater good of Azula who was more worth far more to the village than what Naruto ever would, He chose to let the rumour form.

The only good thing about this was the fact that everyone thought that Minato had one child. Despite the fact that his son was a carbon copy in terms of looks, no one thought he was related to Minato because of the simple fact that no one thought that he, the Sandaime Hokage would do something like this.

The worst part out of all of this though was the fact that he couldn't interact with the boy because it would raise questions. Those questions would lead to answers that would not be great for Konoha's image.

In all honesty the Sandaime hoped that a time came where Naruto was mature enough to be able to handle the news and hopefully forgive him. If it seemed like Naruto wasn't mature, then he wouldn't reveal who his real parents were. It would be unfortunate for the boy but he had done worse things for the village he loved.

**With Naruto and Sasuke**

Unaware as to what was going on surrounding him, Naruto was happy at the fact that he only received one week of detention. With the day being a Friday, their detention wasn't scheduled to start until the following Monday. This gave the two shinobi a little bit more free time to train. The good thing though was that it was daylight savings and this meant that there was still enough light outside so by the time that they went to Sasuke's place, there would be enough time to get a full training session in.

"I think that we should test our elemental affinities. You need to know yours so you know what to train in and I don't think that mine is fire." Sasuke said out of the blue to which Naruto nodded. He wasn't not complaining for a second as this would open up a whole new range of things that he could train to become a better shinobi at.

When they got to Sasuke's house, the duo of aspiring shinobi made their way to the library. Inside the place they found where the chakra paper was located.

"Alright, here goes nothing…" Sasuke said out loud as he channelled chakra into the paper. It turned out that he was both incorrect and correct at the same time. When he thought that Fire wasn't his affinity, Sasuke was partially right. As it turned out, the Uchiha clan heir had a disposition to lightning based techniques but what surprised him was that his paper started to catch fire after a few seconds.

"So I have a dual affinity… I guess that's a good thing." Sasuke said and immediately Naruto felt hard done by. It seemed like Sasuke got everything as far as he was concerned. He had the special bloodline and now he had two chakra affinities which was unheard of for someone so young.

_Is it too much to ask for something? _Naruto questioned internally. He knew that it would take double the effort that to beat Sasuke if he had nothing and Sasuke had a few shortcuts and Naruto knew that he wouldn't be able to double his work ethic in comparison to his best friend.

Channelling chakra into the paper, Naruto and Sasuke who was watching with avid interest were incredibly confused. What they saw wasn't something that they had learnt about when they studied chakra affinities.

"I take it you're just as confused as me?" Naruto questioned and he got a nod in response.

In his hand was nothing like the diagrams in the books he had read. In his hand was a similar substance to powder but he knew that it wasn't that. it was too course to be a powder and generally most powders were white, this one was an orangey brown.

"Well this is just great!" Naruto lamented in frustration. Eventually, when something good came his way, it seemed like it he had to take two steps back before making three forward. "How the hell am I supposed to use this information?"


	3. Put under the pressure

As it turned out, that powdery like substance was not in fact powder like Naruto had first thought. With the substance in his hand, Naruto went over to the nearest person and ask what it was. Luckily for Naruto he got an answer on his first go.

In his hand was sawdust; that only meant one thing.

Naruto Uzumaki had the fabled Mokuton last seen possessed by the Shodai Hokage Hashirama Senju.

Strangely enough the first thought for Naruto Uzumaki wasn't that he had something so rare that it was thought to be extinct. The first thought inside the mind of the blonde haired boy was that he wasn't Naruto Uzumaki… he was Naruto Senju.

If he had the Mokuton bloodline limit then that meant that he was related the Senju clan. He didn't know how, he didn't particularly care at the moment because he was happy at the fact that he finally had a family with proof.

Ever since he could remember people had been flinging insults about how he wasn't an Uzumaki and that the Sandaime felt sorry for him and gave that name when he was orphaned at birth.

Now Naruto Senju had proof that he belonged to a family and he couldn't be happier for it. It was then that he realised that if information got out, his life would completely change.

Admittedly, he didn't really like Konoha considering the way they treated him and he knew that if people found out, they would treat him just like they treated Azula and he didn't like her at all.

_If they're not around when I'm at my worst, then they don't deserve to be around when I am at my best._

As far as he was concerned, the only person who actually cared about him as a person was his best friend Sasuke Uchiha. He was the only person who had tried to befriend Naruto Uzumaki and that looked like staying true for a long time.

Everyone else would suck up to Senju-sama and he saw enough of that when it came to people interacting with Sasuke that he knew he wanted nothing to do with that.

It was at that single moment before Naruto met back up with his friend that he decided that he wouldn't reveal his secret. A part of him felt that they didn't deserve to know as he assumed that Konoha as a whole would try and take credit for his genetics.

"So did you find out what it was?" Sasuke questioned and managed to break Naruto out of his thoughts.

"Damn it, don't scare me like that! I forgot that you're starting to learn sensor ninjutsu." Naruto immediately responded.

There was a look of annoyance on the face of the young Uchiha. "I didn't even need to use that, you look like you were in a different world a second ago."

"I found out what that stuff was when I used the chakra paper." Naruto said not having the balls to make eye contact with Sasuke.

Curious as to why his friend was acting this way as he was normally very confident, Sasuke questioned him. "What could be so bad about that that made you act like this?"

"You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone. What I just found out is something that will completely change my life once everyone finds out."

Despite the fact that this only piqued the curiosity of one Sasuke Uchiha, there were more important things on his mind. He saw the vulnerability in his friend and if there was one person you could trust to not betray your trust, then it was the Uchiha clan heir.

He went through enough of it with Itachi that he didn't want to wish that type of feeling onto anyone apart from his elder brother. "I promise. I won't tell anyone even a hint." Sasuke even offered his fist out for a bump.

Naruto smiled when he saw this offer_. I knew I could trust him._ Naruto bumped fists with Sasuke before telling him what he learnt just recently. "I found out the stuff I had in my hand was sawdust." This was all the blonde haired kid needed to say for Sasuke to understand completely what Naruto was going through.

"You're right. That would completely change things. Alright, let's make a pact that we will be best friends like Madara and Hashirama but instead we will never let anything get in between us. No jutsu, no other friends, no missions and most importantly, no girls will ever stop us from being best friends!" Sasuke boldly proclaimed in a moment of what he would look back on as madness.

"If we're keeping this secret then we have to go the whole way, we can't just half arse it!" Naruto said with massive smile on his face. In an action that heavily surprised Sasuke, Naruto gave what he thought was the manliest bro-mantic hug. There was no homo involved, just an action to show how much they friendship meant to him.

Sasuke returned the hug but quickly broke it off. "We're never doing that again and don't you dare tell anyone that." Sasuke said with a blush of embarrassment on his face.

"Alright then, just because I'm more comfortable then you are, don't get your panties in a twist." Naruto said but between the look they had in their eyes, they knew that friendship was worth more than any words could ever describe it to be.

Two kids from broken homes come together under unusual circumstances and become the best of friends. It was a story that could write itself.

**One week later**

From that point the friendship between Naruto Senju and Sasuke Uchiha was even tighter if that was possible. This was so much so that Sasuke even stammered to offer Naruto to come stay over at his place permanently.

He knew that Naruto had a tough time making finances meet week to week. He also knew that if the two of them lived together, then it would allow for much easier living when they shared responsibilities.

The fact that it would give Naruto an extra 150 ryo a week on spending money was a godsend for Naruto. He would now be able to buy proper food instead of the cheapest stuff he could find.

"Alright time to train…" Naruto said as he and Sasuke got home from school.

The raven haired Uchiha nodded. "I will be reading up on Raiton manipulation and attempting that. Which element have you chosen to try first?"

"Well since you're two elements are offensive, I've decided that I'm going to start learning a defensive one first to you know balance each other out." Naruto replied.

Sasuke nodded, he could see how much this would benefit them when it came to fighting. "So you're going to learn Doton huh?" Sasuke questioned to which Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, hopefully I can learn it quick enough to get on to water ninjutsu because being able to use it like the Nidaime would be really cool."

**Six months later**

With six months having passed since Naruto found out that he had the Mokuton bloodline limit, things couldn't be better. Ever since he had moved in with Sasuke, Naruto had been loving life. Most of his free time outside of training was learning about anything and everything that revolved around his newfound family.

Of course Hashirama Senju was the person who he focused on the most because of the fact that he was the only in the family who previously had the Mokuton. As he read about the man, he found out that he was a health freak in the words of others and loved nature. He also didn't believe in eating something that he didn't grow himself.

That was another benefit that Naruto found out reading about his ancestor was that he had the ability to perfectly grow any type of flower, weed, vegetable or fruit as long as he had the seeds necessary for it.

At the moment he couldn't do that because he didn't have the necessary skills in the Mokuton chakra but once he got the hang of it, he was confident he could do the same thing. Plus Naruto Senju thought that it would be really good being able to live by yourself without having to rely on anyone else.

This newfound interest in produce and nature made Naruto interest in cooking past the point of ingesting stuff to stop the hunger pains. He wanted to use the freshest ingredients as according to Hashirama, they were the best for you and the best tasting ones.

With Naruto now handed the cooking responsibilities for the two nine year olds, it meant that Sasuke had to do something to even out the household chores and he had decided that his major one would be cleaning the rather large apartment they shared. It also happened to help considering the fact that Naruto quickly found out that Sasuke Uchiha was the biggest neat freak that the world had ever seen.

Anything that was even slightly out of place for a second would be put back into its rightful place. The slightest speck of dust would be seen thanks to his sharingan and thus gotten rid of.

**x-X-x**

Class had just finished for the week and it was now time for Naruto to do the weekly shop. The raven haired Uchiha thought that he might as well go and see what happened. He knew that eventually, there would come a time where he would be able to rely on Naruto for cooking and thus he would have to fend for himself.

On their way out after having sealed all of the food into special food storage scrolls which would allow the food to go off, Naruto and Sasuke headed back home before someone speaking through a megaphone caught their attention.

"Do you want to be bigger, faster or stronger? Do you want to be overall healthier in your day to day life? Well then come on over to Body Supps and check out our range of products! We have a massive sale going on at the moment so you would be mad not to come over here and at least have a look!"

As they turned around and saw the guy spruiking, the two ninjas in training shared a look and decided to head over there.

When the man saw the two kids come over, he grinned. "Hi there, just go inside and our guys will take care of everything for you."

After hearing that, the duo of aspiring shinobi headed inside. "Hey kids, how can I help you today?"

"We're academy students and we want to become the best we can be." Sasuke stated to which the man nodded.

"Well at your age, you should be getting most of your body's requirements from food instead of supplements because your body needs all the extra energy that food provides to grow.

That being said, a good mass gainer will give you carbs for energy and also a lot of protein to help you build muscle. They come in many flavours but most people say that they like chocolate the best."

Just by looking at the size of the man and how muscly he was, Naruto and Sasuke were inclined to believe that the man knew what he was talking about.

"Since you're going to be a ninja, you need to be at your best all day every day because you never know when you could go on a mission. A multi vitamin will purge everything bad that's in your body, build up your immune system, allow you to stay focused for longer when studying."

Naruto and Sasuke looked at one another and agreed that this would be something that they would need.

"Finally this is the only other thing that I would recommend for you two since you're really young." The man said before going over to a shelf and grabbing a container.

"Protein is the most important thing you can put into your body because it is used to make bones, skin, eyes, heart, intestines and most importantly muscle. That is why you need these: Branch chain amino acids" Once he saw that he had a nod showing that they understood what he was talking about, the guy continued on.

"What this does, is that breaks down the protein to everything your body needs it for much better. This means that you build muscle faster and you also recover from workouts quicker allowing you to train more often. I'd get a flavourless one of these so you can put this and protein in the same drink to make it easier for yourselves. "

The second that they heard the second last part about being able to train more sold Naruto and Sasuke. "Alright, we'll take the largest sizes you have of all three." Sasuke stated and he saw the man's eyes light up.

"Sure thing kids, if there is any problems with them feel free to come back and we can swap them for something else!" the massively muscled man stated to which Sasuke nodded.

_If these things do what he said they would then the only time I would be coming back will be to get more of them._

**The next morning**

Naruto didn't really feel all that different after having taken the stuff that they bought the day before when he woke up. After rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Naruto headed for the toilet.

After pulling his pants down his waist a little bit and getting all set, Naruto started peeing into the toilet. He was still half a sleep so it took him a while to realise what was going on.

His piss wasn't the normal clear, see through colour it usually was thanks to drinking heaps of water. Instead thanks to the multi vitamin that he took although he was unaware of it at the time had turned his wee green.

The second that Naruto Senju realised what had happened, he did the only thing he knew.

He screamed.

"Ahhhh!"

Sasuke who heard this had previously been blissfully asleep. There was only one time previously when he heard people screaming so the second he heard it, Sasuke bolted out of bed clad only in his flannel pyjama pants and rushed to the sound of the noise.

"What's going on!?" Sasuke demanded with his two tomoe sharingan blazing.

"My piss is bright green!" Naruto, still in hysterics, shouted not even realising how nervous Sasuke had been.

It took a few seconds for Sasuke to process this information but once he did, there was only one viable option.

He fell on the floor and started laughing hysterically. It was the first time he had shown anything more than a smirk.

Once Naruto realised that his friend didn't care one bit about the situation he was in, he had a sour expression on his face. "Glad to know I can become a court jester if being a shinobi doesn't work out…" Naruto muttered loud enough for Sasuke to hear.

This only sent the raven haired boy off in another fit of laughter.

Naruto knew that if he stayed here it would only make things worse so he went to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast. Just before it was done, Sasuke came into the kitchen with a smirk on his face. "Don't you dare say anything." Naruto threatened with a scowl on his face.

This only seemed to make the smirk become even bigger if it was at all possible.

**At the academy**

Unfortunately for Naruto the expression on the face of Sasuke did not go away. This was despite the fact that it was already lunch time and Sasuke had no plans on letting him live it down.

Fast forward to sitting down at their spot, Naruto decided that he might as well try something that had been on his mind. He had a tomato seed in his hand, he was trying solely because his best friend's favourite dishes were anything tomato based.

If he managed to have a tomato plant at the academy, then Sasuke would be happy and if Naruto could make those around him happy then he would be.

As he planted it in the ground and covered it up with the nearby dirt, Naruto poured some water out of his drink bottle onto the ground. After making sure that no one was looking, Naruto started channelling chakra into the ground.

Immediately, Naruto noticed the chance as grass started growing round the dirt at a rapid rate. More importantly though as far as Naruto was concerned, a stalk started appearing out from the grass. When leaves started appear Naruto grinned.

Nudging Sasuke with his elbow, Naruto turned his attention back to the ground in front of him.

Turning around when his blonde haired nudged him, Sasuke watched how the leaves started off creating buds which developed into flowers and finally finished with a bright red, delicious looking fruit. All of this happened right in front of his very eyes and he was amazed by it.

There were two fruits on the tree and once he was done, Naruto picked one of for each of them. "cheers." Naruto offered. With time he would realise that this was something that is only done with drinks but right now he couldn't care less.

"These are really good." Sasuke commented after having his first bite. "You could easily sell these, I would buy them in a heartbeat." The Uchiha clan member said licking the jutsus off his lips. "Yes, I definitely made the right decision in getting you to live with me." Sasuke said to himself and as he said this he didn't realise that there was a massive grin on the face of Naruto.

"Really you think so? I should probably try other fruits first before doing that."

"Why? Costs would be next to nothing and you could charge a premium price since the quality is so good meaning that you would be raking it in. That and there are certain fruits that are seasonal where you can just grow them whenever you want."

"You're right, this could be the start of something great, I just have to finish learning the wood clone jutsu so that the clone can be doing that and I can be training or at the academy." Naruto replied and Sasuke nodded at that.

"Can I hang out with you guys!?" a bubbly voice questioned to the two ninjas in training. When the duo looked up, they noticed that it was none other than Azula Namikaze

"No." Naruto replied in an instant.

Shocked when she heard this answer as she hadn't ever heard someone say know to her, Azula stomped the ground. "What! Why not?"

"Well I thought that you could use some friends… I mean you only hang out with each other and only having one friend is pretty bad." The words that came out of Azula's mouth were the first ones that entered her mind.

Sasuke looked up at the girl. She honestly thought that she was doing them a favour by allowing them to be her friends? "Go back to your so called friends who don't like you and only pretend to so that they can get close to the Yondaime Hokage's daughter." _If she's going to be a bitch to me, then I've got no problem being an absolute mean back._

This was the first time that anyone had ever said anything bad to the princess of Konoha. What did she do? She ran away with tears forming in her eyes, hoping that no one would see her.

Neither Sasuke or Naruto felt that what they had done was wrong. As far they were concerned, they knocked the giant ego of Naruko down a peg or two.

"I need to the toilet sensei." Naruto called out in the middle of the class.

"Very well Naruto, just make sure your back in time to get these notes down as they will be no more copies of them later on." Iruka, the new teacher told his student who nodded.

As he made his way down the hall and took the first right, he saw the door to the principal's office open. Wondering what was going on since the door was slightly open, Naruto decided to see if there was anything interesting going on.

"What are we going to do about team selections for the upcoming graduation Kaori-sama?" one of the teachers questioned to his boss.

"Just do what we always do, pair up the rookie of the year with kunoichi of the year and the worst performing student. Rookie of the year is guaranteed to pass the final exam.

From what I've read of this class, there aren't going to be many readymade graduates so pair the clan kids in one team and that will be the quota of at least 3 teams for the year. The rest who graduate will get sent back for remedial classes and if that fails, then they can go and join the conscripts or pay for their tuition and become a civilian."

Having heard enough of what he needed to, Naruto quickly went to the toilet and then headed back to his class.

With the academy over for yet another day, Naruto and Sasuke were greeted with the presence of Konoha's princess. "Hey umm Naruto and Sasuke… I'd just like to say sorry for what I said before." Azula said, her eyes still a little bit red from the earlier waterworks.

"Err, okay." Naruto said before turning back around with the plans of what he was going to be doing later on. Assuming that the conversation was over, Sasuke turned around as well and started heading home.

"Wait!" Azula screamed.

"I really want to you to be my friends. My dream is to become the first female Hokage and you guys are really strong." Naruko said and once again the two boys didn't like what she had said.

"We're not just some toy that you can use and once you get the enjoyment, ditch us and go on to the next person you find. Unlike you we actually value our friendships." Naruto said to the girl before turning around leaving the girl standing there in shock.

This was the first time that there was someone out there who treated her like an actual person instead of the daughter of the Yondaime Hokage. Now she really wanted to be their friend and she was being completely honest. The only problem was that she thought that she had screwed it up lost her chance for some real friends.

**Author's Note: as far as this story goes, the 1 ryo equals $1 **


	4. Of walking in your shoes

"Hey there, how can I help you today?" A wood clone of Naruto Senju questioned to the next in line.

"Yes, can I just get these thanks." A middle aged woman said to which Naruto nodded.

"Sure thing! So how's your day been today?" Naruto questioned pretending to care about his customer's life under the pretence of giving good customer service.

"Oh really busy and I love whatever it is you do for your apples. If I went to a hospital they would probably diagnose me with a chronic addiction for any fruit that you sell." The woman said with a massive smile on her face.

"Hahaha, thank you for that. It's really nice to know people love the food and aren't just getting it out of a necessity." Naruto replied with a beaming smile across his face.

"The dedication that you have at such an age is amazing. I know you're going to go places young man."

"Thank you for your kind words and have a nice day." Naruto said when he was finished counting the prices for the fruit and vegetables that the lady had purchased.

_You wouldn't be saying that if I wasn't under this henge though would you… _Naruto thought to himself. Once word got out around the village that he had beaten up the princess of Konoha during a spar, things only seemed to get worse for the blonde haired boy.

What started off as dislike quickly turned into utter hatred for one Naruto Uzumaki. Anything bad that happened to Azula was a cardinal sin in the eyes of the village hidden in the leaves.

They didn't even bother to hide it when he was with his friend, the clan heir of the Uchiha clan. It opened up the eyes of Sasuke to what his friend really went through. It made the Uchiha sick to his stomach and he hated how justified people felt for abusing his friend.

The opinion of Konoha had gone down a lot in his eyes when he compared the treatment they gave to someone they could get something out of like himself and Naruko compared to Naruto who offered them nothing.

After a while his opinion fell to the same level which Naruto held his of Konoha; not that high at all.

As far as Naruto was concerned, there were only 2 reasons why he was still in the village. He knew that he could just as easily leave Konoha and live off the land but the education he was getting and the time it allowed him to progress in the ninja arts was too good an offer to refuse at the moment.

If things didn't progress though, then leaving Konoha was definitely getting put on the table for discussion. He didn't want to go to another village because he assumed that once word got out about his Mokuton abilities, he would be target number one. That and the only reason he would be welcomed into their village would be to become a breeding stock to recreate the Senju clan in some other village.

He just wanted a place which would treat him as a human being. Nothing more; Nothing less.

At least he was now financially independent.

The boom in his fresh produce business was something that nobody could have expected. Thanks to the Mokuton bloodline limit, it allowed Naruto to create perfect quality produce at next to nothing. At first Naruto started off selling tomatoes on a small scale a few days after he gave a field test with the tomato seed at the academy.

It was also a coincidence that it was at this time that he learnt the wood clone jutsu. Making sure that he could use a henge on top of it, Naruto decided to send it out and see what the people made of a 9 year old kid selling tomatoes.

He didn't have many customers but everyone saw him as a cute kid trying to make a buck and thus decided to give their business to him. When they realised the quality of the food that he was selling, they kept coming back for more.

The first complement was all Naruto needed to reassure himself that he was doing something that he could rely on as an income. It was this that made Naruto decide to spend all of the money he had made on all different kinds of plant seeds.

One thing led to another with word of mouth being his biggest advertisement and Naruto Senju had gone from a single tray of tomatoes to a renting a store on the main market street full with every kind of produce one could think of.

He even had to increase the amount of wood clones he created on a daily basis to take care of the demand. In the five years he had been working as a fruit and veg stall operator Naruto didn't have a business degree but he was confident in the fact that he could get a job thanks to the experience he had.

The extra money that Naruto had coming in at a fast rate meant that he didn't have to spend his money frugally. He could now afford the best of everything when it came to clothes, training equipment and anything else his interest caught.

This upgrade in attire amongst other things made Naruto one of the cuties according to the girls in the class. He was a bad boy not because of the way he acted although that was a bonus in the eyes of some girls but because of what their parents had told them.

He was the devil's fruit that you're not allowed to touch but you really really want to. Sasuke was similar in that he was the hottest student of the class. The only difference was that he wasn't forbidden fruit and parents of all backgrounds encouraged their kids to hang out with Sasuke.

The only person who didn't actively try and be friends with Sasuke was Hinata Hyuga simply because her father forbade her ever making friends with someone of the Uchiha clan.

What Sasuke soon found out though was that everyone was willing to be his friend but no one wanted to be Naruto's friend or even worse try and make him choose. There was never even more than half a millisecond for Sasuke to make his choice. He chose the dead last of his class every time.

There was actually a heated discussion between the two when Naruto had dropped the news on how teams were formed, Sasuke immediately offered to be the person to tank his scores. This was where the heated discussion began.

Naruto was stating that Sasuke couldn't do this because it would look too suspicious because he was from one of Konoha's founding clans. He had been up at the top of the rankings since the very first class was something that would be looked into since he had such a promising future.

Naruto on the other hand came from nothing. He was a kid who by all reports got lucky scored well on his first test and had a few good resulting tests. There were many cases where promising kids from broken homes lost the motivation or got caught up in the commotion surrounding their own hype and fell off the radar. There was a very real possibility for Naruto to do just that.

He even had a readymade excuse in how all of the verbal, psychological and emotional abuse caused him to not try as hard because he knew that no one would ever change their opinion on him.

When he gave that answer to his teacher Iruka, the man felt two emotions: pity for Naruto because he knew what it was like to have a tough childhood and he couldn't even begin to imagine what the blonde haired jinchuuriki was going through. The other was pure unadulterated rage at Konoha for the fact that due to their prejudice which he admittedly had joined in before he met the kid but that was beside the point.

It wasn't as if he associated with Naruto outside of the classroom but once he got to know the boy due to teaching him, he knew that the kid wasn't the Kyubi reincarnated as some liked to say. He was just a quiet boy who kept to himself and only had fun when he was with his best friend Sasuke Uchiha.

He didn't deserve the stigma that he had been given. Maybe if people got to see the real him, then they would change their opinions of him. Well that was one lowly non-descript chunin Iruka Umino thought of the situation anyway.

**x-X-x**

"No, I don't like either of them! How many times do I have to say it to get you to stop saying it?" Naruko replied with an embarrassing look on her face. No matter how many times her friend Ino Yamanaka had asked this question, her answer would always be the same.

"How could you not like Sasuke-kun!? I mean I can kinda get why you don't like Naruto since he looks so much like your dad and isn't all that strong but Sasuke is none of that." the pale blonde haired girl said with an unashamed fan girl stare at her crush.

She knew that Naruto looked like an almost carbon copy and it was a surprise that not as many people commented on it in her opinion.

"Well then why do you stare at them so much?" Ino questioned in an inquisitive tone of voice.

"Because there's something about them that's unique. They're not like everybody else who sucks up and tries to kiss my ass. I want to know why that is and once I find out then I'll stop being curious about them." Naruko said getting on the defensive about the situation.

"Ahah! So you admit that you're interested in both of them." the Yamanaka girl said with a triumphant grin on her face. That was the closest she was going to get as a confirmation for her best friend.

"Yes." Naruko stated emphatically. It was then that she realised what she had said and how it could be interpreted. "But not like that." Naruko quickly amended her statement but she could not stop the giggling coming from Ino.

"Ino-san! Azula-san! Could you please stop your kerfuffling and get serious. This is an important day for everyone in the classroom as today is the day where you will begin your final test to become a genin and enter the Konoha Defence Force."

Once they heard these words, Ino, Azula and everyone else in the room stopped what they were doing and paid attention to the teacher. "The first exercise we will be doing for today will be the written exam. Now I know a lot of you don't want to do this but it is mandatory. Would you rather do it now and get it out of the way or do it at the end once you have used all of your energy on everything else?" Iruka questioned to the kids and not a single one of them spoke up in favour for the latter.

"Good. Now here you go, here are your test papers and there will be a 45 minute time limit on them. You will not be allowed to talk, there will be no cheating and if you are caught, you will be immediately disqualified." After having given his ultimatum and seeing the expressions on the student's faces, Mr Umino went about handing out the papers and pencils to his students.

**45 minutes later**

"Okay kids, put down the pencils and finish what you are writing down. If there is anything left out, that is your problem for not completing it on time." He hated being strict with his students but it was a part of the job. He would much rather be strict to them now then have to attend their funeral a few months later.

"Leave all of the papers on the desk and head out to the kunai and shuriken ranges where we will be testing still and moving targets. I will be out shortly after having picked up your tests." Iruka said and the students did what they were told.

Once they were outside, Iruka got his clipboard and called his students one by one out for testing purposes.

When it came up to Naruto's turn to try, Iruka couldn't help but feel disappointed in the kid. Even though he had no attachment to him outside of being his teacher, he thought that the kid had the potential to go on and be so much greater than what he was showing now.

He had the potential to be really great as far as Iruka was concerned. At one point he was tied with the Rookie of the Year Sasuke Uchiha and then he gave it all away. If only he had continued at it, he could have been an inspiration to kids who had nothing saying that as long as you put in the hard work, you get everything back in return.

He couldn't blame the boy though for what he had been through though. Lesser men he knew would have quit and it was a testament to the kid's strong will. In the end Naruto managed to barely get above a passing grade but yet it was still the worse score out of everyone around.

"Now it is recess time so go out and refresh your mind. Just so you know there will be the ninjutsu portion of the test up next so if there is any extra studying you need to do, make sure that you do it now." Iruka-sensei said to the class who were glad that the hard part in most children's was the written exam.

Eventually when the 15 minute break was up, Sasuke and the rest of his class headed back inside for some of them what would be their final day at the academy.

"As I have told you before, today you will be getting tested on the three academy ninjutsu being the henge, the replacement and the basic clone jutsu. Failure to correctly use any one of these will disqualify you from becoming a ninja.

First up this time around was Naruto. "Okay, Naruto, I need you to do a henge for me."

"I bet he fails this hahaha!" the same kid that Naruto had fought several years ago had shouted out much to the class' amusement.

Naruto for his part ignored the personal attack and got down to business. It was pretty damn hard doing something barely right when he was so used to doing it perfectly.

For his choice, Naruto had gone the easy route and selected his sensei Iruka for the henge. The pony tail was a bit too long and the scar across the bridge of his nose was a bit small but apart from that, it was passable.

"Alright Naruto, you have completed the henge test. Get to the back of the line so the next person can perform." Naruto offered a smile to show thanks and did what he was told.

When it came to Sasuke's time, he applied a small amount of killing intent so that everything in the room went quiet. _Wow, Sasuke's going to become something special, I'm sure of it. _Iruka thought to himself because as far as he was concerned, he was the only one who noticed what the Uchiha had just done.

When he used his henge and transformed into one of the founders of Konoha. Every minute detail was inch perfect. Even to the three tomoe sharingan in the eye sockets of Madara Uchiha.

Iruka could easily see why this was arguably the most feared man in all of history just from looking at a henge of him. He hated to think as to what it would be like to meet the real deal.

"V-very well done Sasuke-san, please, if you wouldn't mind, can you please get rid of the jutsu and head back to the end of the line." In a cloud of smoke Madara was gone and in his place was young Sasuke. Every girl thought that what he had done was really cool.

"The look on his face…" Naruto muttered under his breath with a smirk on his face once Sasuke got behind him. Eventually it came their turn to do the clone jutsu. Since Naruto was the first to do the henge, he was also first for the Bunshin. It was pretty shoddy but it was done with enough skill to be passable.

Of course he would have loved to have shown off and done the jutsu perfectly but that was out of the question. After all the effort he had put into tanking his academic records over the past four years, Naruto had gone too far to throw it all away with one display of skill. He could do that once he graduated but not now.

Still, it pissed him off all of the attention Sasuke got when he was just as good.

The only jutsu that he did good as far as Iruka was concerned was the replacement. It also happened to be widely considered the easiest of the three but the man didn't hesitate to complement Naruto for a job well done.

With all of the ninjutsu testing out of the way, it was now time for the taijutsu sparring. Considering the way he had done in his previous tests, he allowed himself some leeway in that he could win his taijutsu spar and still be considered the worst shinobi to graduate.

"Now class, it's lunch time so you have a forty five minute break before we will begin the final test which is the Taijutsu sparring. Once that is completed, you will have another break where you will be still required to stay within the academy grounds. During this time I will be marking your tests." With that said, Iruka allowed his students to leave the room.

"Naruto, can I speak to you for a second please." Iruka asked the ninja in training.

"Uh sure sensei." Naruto replied and waited till everyone had left the room.

"Now Naruto, we both know your grades have slipped over the years but if you want to become a genin, then you're going to have to perform a little bit better in your next exam." Iruka explained to his underperforming student.

Touched by the fact that his sensei cared, or at least was doing his job and not showing any unfair bias to the jinchuuriki of the kyubi, Naruto knew that the next time his teacher went into his store, whatever he bought was going to be free.

"Aw, don't worry about it Iruka-sensei, my best subject is taijutsu so there's no need to worry." Naruto replied with a grin.

"I know, I know. It's just a shame to see all of the potential you had disappear." _Okay scratch that. He's getting two free purchases._

"Thanks a lot Iruka-sensei; that means a lot to me." Naruto said before ending the conversation and going back out to lunch.

As it turned out, what was supposed to be a 45 minute break turned into an hour long break. Iruka managed to fly through grading all of the papers and now could give headbands out after each fight.

"First up is Kiba Inuzuka and Akahiro Yamushi." Iruka stated to which the two participants went up to the makeshift arena.

The fight was pretty easy to predict because Kiba was the second best when it came to taijutsu. This combined with his utterly aggressive style meant that the contest if you could call it that was over in under less than two minutes.

Most of the fights went by with the outcome being pretty predictable. There were a few upsets but there was nothing that was so great of an upset where the person who was favoured to win failed because he didn't show well enough in their test.

Eventually, it got to the point where all that was remaining between Iruka handing out headbands and officially promoting kids into licenced ninjas was two fights. Those two fights happened to be Naruto against the Naruko's biggest fan / stalker. This was the same person who instigated a fight with Naruto and Sasuke after he decided that Naruto had done the wrong thing. That wrong thing was win a fight.

The final fight of the day happened to be none other than the rookie of the year going up against the kunoichi of the year. It was Naruko Namikaze going toe to toe with Sasuke Uchiha. It was a match that all of the kids were looking forward to none more so than Azula.

"I can't wait to make you fail and drop out of the ninja academy! I heard what Iruka said before and if you don't do well then you fail. Well I have news for you, I won't let you showcase the limited skills you think you have!" he said and charged at Naruto.

Naruto for his part simply gave a smirk to his opponent. With his right hand down by his side, Naruto started channelling chakra into it. It got to the point where were even blue wisps tinged with a slight brown coming off of his arm. Only Sasuke and Iruka knew what Naruto was doing. Azula saw it, she just didn't know what Naruto was doing.

Seeing the incoming punch, Naruto dodged that with ease and viciously launched his right arm with all of his strength straight into the jawline of his enemy.

The end result was immediate. There was a cracking noise when Naruto's fist connected with the boy's chin. The power of the punch was enough to force him flying on to the ground.

"This fight is over." Iruka immediately announced. He didn't want Naruto to do any more damage with suck a power packed right hook.

The second that Iruka got over to his student, he noticed that he had a broken jaw. "Shino, can you please come over here and escort him to the nurses office."

"I can do that sensei." Shino said and headed over to help out in any way he could.

Eventually, as they managed to get the kid up, everyone got to see that he was crying. Quite a few of the kids were laughing at the sight of the self-proclaimed tough man crying.

"Naruto, I am proud to announce that due to your performance just then, I have no qualms whatsoever in promoting you to the rank of Genin. Here you go and no matter what, never give up." Iruka said as he handed Naruto a headband.

There was a massive smile on the face of Naruto as he accepted the sign that he was now a genin and amongst the military force of Konoha. "Thank you Iruka-sensei." Naruto replied before going over to his best friend to celebrate.

"You were too easy on him." Sasuke commented with a straight face.

"I guess there's some good still left in me somewhere haha. Now you've got your fight with Miss Princess." Naruto replied with a grin on his face.

"This is going to be so boring. I am going to get nothing out of this. I might as well just give up since I will still be rookie of the year." Sasuke said before heading to the arena where Naruko was waiting.

"We both know that you'll at least be getting an erection out of this." Naruto shouted out loud enough for everyone to hear.

There was a slight blush of embarrassment on the face of Sasuke but the raven haired Uchiha wisely decided not to comment on this. What he was more interested in though was the apparent meteoric blush that had appeared on the face of Azula when she heard this.

"HE BETTER NOT!" She screamed back with adrenaline running through her veins.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at this. He had no intention of doing anything that would make this situation worse.

"Fight." Iruka called out as he tried to get the attention of the class out of the gutter and onto something that would be very impressive.

Azula, embarrassed at what someone had said indirectly about her charged out of the gates. She was intent on stopping any thoughts that Sasuke had about her which were indecent.

As she gave her first punch, Azula didn't expect for it to connect. It would have been nice if it did, but she was not banking on it. When he did indeed dodge the punch, she quickly followed up with a sweeping leg kick, hoping to knock him off of his feet.

Sasuke jumped over this and gave a heel kick in return. Azula was quick enough to dodge this attack by dropping her knees and bending her back. As the heel of Sasuke passed over her face, Azula gave a punch with her weaker left hand right into the ankle of Sasuke.

It affected his balance but it was nothing that he couldn't readjust in mid air before landing on right foot. Seeing the advantage she had, Azula smirked as she rushed forward intent on punishing the under balanced Sasuke Uchiha.

What she didn't expect was for him to continue spinning on his right foot and gather up a lot of momentum. This time round when he delivered the spinning heel kick, Naruko was much too on the front foot to be able to offer up any form of block or dodge.

The connection was sweet and Sasuke delivered his spinning heal kick right into the mush of Azula Namikaze. The blonde haired girl got sent down to the ground due to the force of the hit but to her credit, she got back up straight away and seemed even more intent on wiping that look of indifference off of the face of Sasuke Uchiha.

_How dare he think of me as nothing!? I'm going to become the first female Hokage and that means I have to be really strong! How can I be like that if people don't even think I'm good of as a shinobi to take seriously? _Azula raged internally at what she saw.

"I going to make you take me seriously if it's the last thing that I do!" Azula screamed before she once again engaged in the taijutsu spar.

When she heard this, Ino started giggling. On one hand it was extremely funny seeing her friend who adamantly said that she was not interested in someone say such a sexual innuendo. On the other hand said person she was saying this about was her husband Sasuke Uchiha. She felt conflicted about the situation but she was confident in that she would not lose her man.

Instead of dodging like he had done all of his previous attacks, Sasuke blocked kick to the ribs by bending down and using his arm to block the attack. _Hmm, she actually has some power behind her hits _Sasuke thought to himself. Every other girl that he had fought was nothing but skin and bone.

Seeing this as a sign of improvement, Azula grinned and did not let up for a second.

_This has gone on far too long with her thinking that she is at my level. It's time to show her just how much of a skill difference there is. _As far as Sasuke was concerned, he was helping out the girl. She had an ego and it needed to realise that there would always be someone out there who was stronger than herself.

For the next five minutes, Sasuke proceeded to just barely dodge the incoming attacks of Azula. Whatever the blonde haired girl tried, Sasuke bypassed all of it without even a look of concentration on his face.

"Take me seriously!" Azula shouted with a frustrated look on her face. Before right now, she had never had a spar with Sasuke. Sure Sasuke looked better than everyone else in the class but she thought that that wasn't an issue because she was also better than everyone else.

Even during the start of the fight, Naruko thought she was fighting on an even level until Sasuke turned up the ante; now she couldn't even force Sasuke into making a block. She was getting so frustrated at the fact that all her training seemed to be for nothing and that Sasuke was much closer to the title of Hokage and he wasn't even trying for it.

So frustrated in fact that nothing was working, Azula even reached into her pocket and threw two kunai straight at Sasuke. "Azula, what do you think you are doing!? This is a taijutsu spar and you are therefore disqualified!" Iruka roared as he thought that any student let alone the kunoichi of the year would do something so reckless.

"Awww!" A lot of the students shouted out as they hated the thoughts of this fight ending. It seemed like there was more that these two were had in their lockers and it was about to come out. They wanted to see just how good Sasuke and Naruko were.

Iruka didn't care though because they didn't have a duty of care to deal with. If one of these kids got seriously hurt then there would be hell to pay and he would be the one paying it. This was despite the fact that it was the ninja academy.

In recent years many civilian parents had lobbied for a safer environment for their kids to grow up in considering the large investment that they were making. The pressure was so high that when a committee of parents complained and threatened to pull their kids out. The loss of potential graduates as well as funding was enough to force the hand of Hiruzen Sarutobi. Sure he was a dictator by profession but the happiness of his people was paramount to him.

As all of this was going on, Sasuke Uchiha and Azula Namikaze were standing, waiting for a decision to be made. "It's not as if it's going to make any difference anyway Iruka-sensei. Azula is too weak for anything she does to affect me let alone hurt me."

Whilst she agreed with the fact that the fight should continue, Azula did not like one bit the way he tried to get his point across. She was not weak and she couldn't wait for a proper fight so that she could wipe that smug look off of his face.

"Hey Iruka-sensei, How about you say that they declare that if anything happens that you are not at fault and they can't do anything to you?" Naruto piped up in the hopes of letting this fight continue on. He couldn't wait to see the look on the face Azula once she realised how completely inferior she was compared to a proper shinobi.

When Naruto said this, even the students who hated him completely supported his idea with voracious outbursts to their sensei. They really wanted to see the fight recommence.

"Alright fine, if you two agree that the academy, myself and none of the students are responsible for any injuries that might occur, then I will let this battle continue. I will however step if I feel the need to and that will the end of the fight." Iruka stated to the two genin who both nodded. As far as Iruka was concerned, they both had made genin due to their performances.

"Okay, you are now free to use any form of jutsu you know along with weapons." Iruka said and immediately, Naruko who had regained her breath went on the offensive.

Azula threw four kunai and two shuriken right at Sasuke. What she followed up next with was something that surprised even Sasuke. "Fuuton: Daitoppa! (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" Azula called out and she unleashed a huge gust of wind which greatly increased the potency of the flying instruments of death.

Surprised at the well-constructed attack, Sasuke barely dodged the attack with all of his speed. As he sped to the right to evade the incoming attacks, one hand of his started going through hand seals whilst the other one went into his pocket to pick out a kunai.

"Raiton: Denki Shi no Jutsu (Lightning Release: Electric death.)" Sasuke called out loudly. Sasuke purposefully threw the kunai at a slow speed.

As it was moving through the air, Naruko was confident in that she could do what Sasuke had been doing the whole fight. That was moving only moving enough to dodge the attack and nothing more.

What she didn't expect was that Sasuke had guessed that she would do this. Using the chakra that he had built up with the jutsu, Sasuke made a jab with the hand and pointed his two fingers right at the kunai. The electricity moved from his hand and onto the kunai and this made the metal move at a much faster rate.

Naruto, as he watched this couldn't help but chuckle. As he was from the Uchiha clan, he didn't have access to many lightning jutsus and thus he had to make a few himself. This was the one that Naruto hated the most as it was pretty innocuous and easy to underestimate.

Seeing the blue-ish tinge the kunai had now, Azula jumped as fast as she could to the left. Unfortunately for her, the kunai's change of speed was enough so that she couldn't get out of the way in time.

The kunai went straight through her orange jacket as well as the black tank top underneath it. It sliced through a little bit of the fat just above her hip and she screamed out in pain. It was the first time that she had gotten more than a glorified love tap in training and it was not something that she was used to.

"This fight is over!" Iruka called out as he stood between the two genin. Once he made sure that Sasuke knew the fight was over, he rushed over to the side of Azula Namikaze.

Before Iruka-sensei could get over to her, Azula had rubbed her eyes and got onto her haunches. Courageously, Azula got up right when Iruka went over to her.

"Are you alright Azula?" Iruka questioned the girl.

Azula put on a brave face. "Yeah I'm fine Iruka-sensei, I mean how am I going to become the first female Hokage if I can't handle a little bit of pain?" Azula said, asking a rhetorical question.

Iruka's focus was elsewhere though as he was busily looking at the cut she had sustained. "I s'pose you can't can you?" Iruka replied with a grin on his face which Azula responded with one of her own.

"Now here you go, here's your headband Azula." Iruka stated as he pulled one out of his pocket. When he gave it to the girl, he saw the smile grow to almost comical proportions.

"Thanks Iruka-sensei!"

"Don't worry about it." The teacher said with a small smile on his face. It was moments like these where he knew he loved his job. Of course there were times where he hated it but times like this more than made up for it.

As he got up from his kneeling position, Iruka walked over to Sasuke Uchiha who was talking to Naruto. "Congratulations Sasuke for graduating to the rank of genin and as the rookie of the year no less. Here is your headband." Iruka stated formally as he handed the proof of hard work over.

"Thank you" was all that Sasuke said before tying the head band around his head.

**Later on**

As soon as the fight was over and done with, Iruka had given the all clear to all of those who graduated the all clear to leave. As the duo of Naruto and Sasuke were spotted walking out, a multitude of parents started commenting about how they hated the fact that The Omen of Destruction was allowed to graduate. They assumed that he would simply bring bad luck to their kids and get them killed.

As he walked through this, the blonde haired boy had a pretty good poker face going on but even he couldn't let all of the insults pass by over his head.

Bearing witness to this first hand made Sasuke incredibly angry. He could see why his best friend didn't like Konoha one bit. Sasuke himself hated the incredible disparity between how he was treated compared to how Naruto got treated. They were only treating him like this because there was the potential that they could get more out than what the put in for being associated with Sasuke Uchiha and he hated that more than anything.

Putting that in the back of his mind, Sasuke Uchiha had more important things to do right now. He and Naruto had made an agreement that they would get a graduation present for officially becoming shinobi in the eyes of the world.

Sasuke's present would be becoming the first person to sign the Falcon summoning contract which was his father's greatest achievement during the third great shinobi war from Kumogakure. It was this sole move that made him become the clan head above another competing for the title.

Since he was already aligned with the cat contract, he could not sign it and Itachi chose the crow contract which they already had stored, Sasuke was the first person since it switched hands to sign it. He couldn't wait to see just how powerful they were and how they could help him become strong.

Naruto was in a different boat. He completely respected the fact that Sasuke had the right to sign whichever contract he wanted. Since they were all property of the Uchiha clan and Naruto being a Senju no less, he didn't want to force his best friend into a tough situation.

Something that he did find out after reading one of the classified jutsu theory scrolls from the Uchiha clan library was that there was a theory related to the summoning jutsu.

If you did the jutsu without first signing a contract, then it would send you to the world in which you are most aligned with. When you got there, you had to pass some form of test to become a summoner. Some animal clans even killed you on the spot for trespassing on their home.

Despite the threat of almost imminent death, Naruto thought that this was a great idea for him to do. He knew that if he didn't do this, then there would have been no other way of him getting a contract and as much as he hated to admit it, he didn't want to be left out in comparison to Sasuke.

Sitting on the grass, Naruto cut his finger with a blade, did the hand seals and poured a fair amount of chakra into the jutsu.


	5. Don't know what

When the smoke dispelled, Naruto found himself in a somewhat familiar area. It was familiar in that he could create similar to this albeit on a much smaller scale. The only things that he couldn't create were obviously the large skeletons of animals that littered the forest.

As soon as he looked around, Naruto found himself staring right into the sight of flying goop headed straight for his face. Not knowing what it was, Naruto quickly dodged to the side.

Preparing himself as he had no idea what was out there, Naruto looked around and was surprised to see a white slug about half the size of one of his legs lying there on the ground.

Naruto quickly rotated his head so he knew what he was dealing with and when he saw the goop or whatever the hell it was, he noticed just how bad it would be to get hit by it. As it turned out, said goop was actually acid judging by the fact that the parts of the tree were no longer there anymore.

"What are you doing here human? This is the sacred grounds of the Namekuji Clan and we are not afraid to kill on sight."

"I don't know why I am here, honestly!" Naruto exclaimed putting his hands up to his face showing disarmament. "I just did the summoning jutsu without signing a contract and it just sent me here!" Naruto said. He really didn't want to piss of a summoning clan because from the pictures that he had seen, they were the size of mansions!

"So it sent you to the clan that you are most attuned to… That is nice and all that you are like us but unfortunately for you, no matter what you do, you will never become a member of our clan. Will you please leave or you will force me to kill you." The slug said in a voice that didn't change octaves once.

Naruto didn't like this answer one bit. "What do you mean I can't sign your contract? I mean if I'm so alike, then what's the reason? You haven't even given me a test for me to pass yet." Naruto replied with a frustrated look on his face.

"Unlike most other summoning clans, the Namekuji are solely aligned to a human clan. We do not accept summoners from outside of the Senju clan because of our close bond with them." When the slug said this, she thought that it would make the boy said.

It was anything but that. In fact, Naruto gained a smirk on his face. "I'm glad you said that as I have Senju blood in me." Naruto replied, full of confidence.

"I don't believe you. For all I know you could be just saying this. What proof do you have to say that you are a part of the Senju clan?"

Instead of replying, Naruto simply walked over to the tree in which the slug had hit with her acid previously. Channelling chakra into his hand, Naruto repaired the damage which the acid had done to the tree.

It was a calculated risk but Naruto was confident that it would pay off in the end. He was confident that if he asked nicely, they would be happy to not let out as to what his bloodline was. If the slug family were so aligned with the Senju clan then having the last Mokuton user must be extremely important to them as far as he was concerned and they would do a lot to have it amongst their clan.

"I'm sorry for the way I treated you before. Many times we have people coming here trying to claim that they are a member of the Senju clan to steal our secrets. Would you please follow me so we can meet the clan head." The slug said to Naruto in an immediate turn around considering the previous hostility.

He didn't like how the slug was someone who would change their opinion of him as soon as they found out that he had the Mokuton but he knew that there was no other way for him to be able to join the clan.

After all, they were his only connection to the last remaining family member he had and he wanted to meet her if it was the last thing that he did.

Nodding to the slug, Naruto followed it through the forest to an underground cave, Naruto spotted a few slugs staring at him with curiosity. It got to a point where the slug that was directing Naruto stopped.

"Katsuyu-sama, I urgently request your presence please." When she said this, Naruto thought that this meant that he was going to see the boss summon. If he was honest with himself, he was feeling a few nerves about the situation but he was confident that in the end, everything would work out.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" a slug said, coming out of one of the smaller caves. To Naruto's great surprise though, this slug was even smaller than the one he first met. He was mightily confused at the moment.

"This child here reversed summoned himself here and stated that he has Senju blood in him."

"I see" was all that Katsuyu said.

"He has the Mokuton though."

The second that the slug said this, everyone in the room went silent. It was then that Naruto realised that Katsuyu could increase and decrease her size at will because she became the size of a house.

"Is this true young child?" Katsuyu questioned in a calm tone of voice.

Knowing that nothing good would happen with backing out now, Naruto knew he had to go all the way. He did this by placing his hands down on the ground, channelling some chakra and watched as a tree formed out of the ground.

"That is very impressive young child. How would you like to sign our contract?" Katsuyu immediately offered.

"I would love to… on one condition." Naruto said and he waited a while to see what the response to this was. Naruto quickly realised that it was impossible to read the facial expressions of slugs when you considered the fact that they had none.

"No one in the world knows that I can use the Mokuton. I want it to stay that way until I am strong enough to not be forced into doing anything I don't want to because of the Mokuton bloodline." Naruto stated with what he thought was authority… it wasn't.

"That is something that we can work with young child. We will not inform anyone about your abilities as you wish." Naruto gave a smile when he heard this.

"However, I will inform Tsunade Senju as a friend and not as the clan head that she does have some family remaining in the world."

"Sure, I don't have a problem with that." Naruto said with a smile on his face. He was actually hoping that they would do something so that he could meet her for the first time. For the last four years, he had been constantly thinking about what it would be like to meet up with her. She was the only family he had and for a child orphaned at birth, he was determined to have her in his life.

It was then that another slug came out from the same cave which Katsuyu came from with a scroll on her back. Through the use of chakra, the slug which looked like a carbon copy of Katsuyu as far as Naruto was concerned pulled the scroll off of her back and placed it on the ground.

Knowing what was expected of him, Naruto signed his name on the contract with the Senju surname. It was a clear move to show of what he intended to do when he was older.

**x-X-x**

If one paid attention to the attire of one Naruto Uzumaki, they would notice that there was not any form of Konoha headband on his personage. Sure, he had one but he honestly didn't feel as if he was a part of the village like everyone else.

Instead he had a pair of black shinobi sandals, white medical gauze tape which held the hems of his black pants up so that they didn't drag along the floor. For the top half of his body, Naruto had a forest green, long sleeve kimono top which had silver linings on the edges. It was also held in place by a silver obi.

With Hashirama as his idol, Naruto had even gone to the trouble of growing his vibrant blonde hair out. It looked pretty average at the moment since it was only at the base of his neck but he knew it would look cool once he waited a couple of years to get it to a full length.

Sasuke had the exact same idea when it came to his hair. Long hair was a sign of vitality and power, two traits which he possessed. With Naruto having taken Hashirama as his role model, Sasuke thought that it was only fair in that he could use Madara as his role model.

As they were sitting down in the academy for what they thought would be the final time, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha waited with baited breath to see what the team assignments would be. They were confident that all of their hard work would pay off in manipulating the teams to give them what they wanted.

After the speech of Iruka-sensei about what it meant to be a Konoha shinobi, the man got down to business in announcing what the teams were going to be.

"Team Seven is Azula Namikaze, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. Your Jonin-sensei will be Kakashi Hatake."

"Yay! Kakashi-niisan!" Azula called out in utter jubilation. She couldn't wait to be taught by her favourite chronically late ninja.

Sasuke didn't mind this when he heard it. Kakashi was the only man with a sharingan eye so he would be able to help him get that final five percent out of his abilities.

Naruto on the other hand decided that he would wait. As far as this Kakashi was concerned, he was the dead last of the class. For all he knew, this Kakashi person could be nice to Sasuke and Azula whilst being a proper cunt to Naruto.

The three hours in which it took for their Jonin-sensei to arrive wasn't something that improved the opinion in which Naruto had for Kakashi.

The second he walked into the room, he saw that Naruto and Sasuke were talking between one another. Meanwhile as this was happening, Azula was sitting in her seat, he head rested on the table.

The second that she saw that Kakashi was finally hear after what was like forever as far as she was concerned, Naruko jumped out of her seat and rushed down to her new sensei. "Hey Kakashi-niisan, so you're going to be our sensei huh?"

"Well it seems likely." Kakashi replied with a disarming smile on his face as he ruffled the pig tailed hair of Azula Namikaze. It was then that Kakashi Hatake turned and looked at his two other students.

Had it not been for the fact that ninety five per cent of his face's real estate was covered up by cloth, Kakashi would have been visibly stunned when he looked at his final student Naruto Uzumaki.

The Uzumaki name was something that was known throughout the world and admittedly, Kakashi hadn't looked much into the fact that he had some kid with said surname. He thought that it was just a coincidence that he had the name Naruto as it could mean whirlpool.

When he saw just what Naruto looked like though, he was ready to commit murder. Just from when he saw Naruto, he knew that the boy and his sister had been separated at birth.

He knew that nothing good would come from him questioning the Hokage about this decision so Kakashi knew that he might as well get things moving. He hoped that he could get to know Minato-sensei's son.

"My impression of all of you is… it doesn't matter what I think. Meet me up on the roof of the academy." Kakashi said before using he shunshined away.

Naruto and Sasuke immediately followed by using the exact same jutsu that Kakashi had just used. To say the least, Kakashi was impressed. From the file that he had read on Sasuke, this was an outside possibility but he never expected for Naruto to be able to perform the shunshin. By all accounts Naruto barely passed and he thought that he was going to be the one who needed the most work.

A few minutes later and Naruko eventually made her way up to the roof with a pout on her face. She didn't say anything because she was embarrassed at the fact that she was last to the roof when she thought she would have been first.

"Okay, to get things out of the way, let's do some introductions. I'll start first. I'm Kakashi Hatake; I have no desire to tell you my likes and dislikes… My dreams for the future… hmm… as for my hobbies… I have lots of hobbies…"

_All he told us is his name…_

Naruko was the first to offer her hand to tell everyone about herself. Scratch that… she was the only one but that wasn't the point.

"My name is Azula Namikaze, I love ramen and I hate mean people, umm I really want to become the first female Hokage and also make my mum and dad really proud of me!"

Kakashi, when he heard this dream was happy, it was the type of kid who hadn't already been jaded by the world. He hoped that Naruko still retained that exuberance once she found out just what the world was really like.

It was then that Kakashi turned his attention to Sasuke Uchiha, expecting him to pick up Azula left off. Sighing as he wasn't normally a person of many words, Sasuke did the deed. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. There are a lot of things that I don't like and not many things I do like. My dream no purpose is to kill a certain man and yes, I do have hobbies."

The only reason as to why he was comfortable in saying this was because everything he said was things that most of Konoha already knew about him. That and if Kakashi got away with saying essentially nothing, he would do it too.

_I suppose I can't expect anything more from him considering his childhood. _Kakashi thought to himself though he did hope that Sasuke didn't get consumed by the anger and rage. Nothing good would come from it.

Eventually, the sensei of Team Seven turned to face Naruto. There was a bit of silence before the blonde haired boy spoke up. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki and no." After that, the genin promptly didn't say anything more.

"Hey that's unfair Kakashi-niisan! Naruto didn't do his introduction properly. He's supposed to tell us his likes / dislikes, hobbies and dreams for the future." Azula was really bummed by this because she actually did want to know more about her teammates.

She hoped that they could be the first proper friends she ever had. Everyone else a part from Ino she was confident wanted to only be her friend because of her name. She was still not one hundred per cent sure about the blonde haired girl either.

"If Kakashi gave him a bullshit answer than so can I." Naruto unapologetically replied back to the girl.

"Let him be Naruko-chan…" Kakashi said quickly, he hoped to diffuse the situation before it begun.

"Now I hate to break it to all of you kids considering you tried so hard to become genin but you're not officially genin yet until you pass the test that the Jonin-sensei has for you."

Just as Kakashi expected, at least one of his students was incensed enough by this to audibly protest. That student was none other than Azula Namikaze. "What!? I thought you were going to be our sensei Kakashi-niisan!" Azula screamed outraged at this new piece of information.

From the reactions that the two boys gave, Kakashi was confident that they would pass simply because they themselves were confident they would pass. Whatever adversity they faced, they knew that they could get through it. He was very impressed with the confidence that the two had although he hoped that turn didn't over to arrogance as that was very deadly.

"Alright then… If I were you I'd get to training ground seven early, like say 6am? Oh and also, it's best if you don't eat breakfast otherwise you'll get sick." As soon as he finished saying this, Kakashi disappeared in smoke to reveal the fact that he had been a shadow clone all of this time.

"GRRRR!" Azula shouted up to the sky. Whilst she liked Kakashi-niisan a lot, there were definitely times where she hated him. This was one of those times. Once she was done venting her frustrations at the fact that they had been stood up, Azula turned to her potential new teammates to see if they wanted to do some team bonding like going out for ramen.

They had already left. Slouching, Azula sat back down on the steps.

It was times like these that she truly felt alone. She didn't bother wiping the single tear that fell down her left eye.

**x-X-x**

Azula was really bored. Kakashi was bored. Azula had been waiting the past three and a half hours for this bloody exam to start. She was almost even at the point where she would pull out her hair it was that bad.

Even Kakashi was a little cheesed off at the fact that he had to wait half an hour for two of his students. Eventually, Naruto and Sasuke arrived at 9:30. They thought that this was a much better time to prepare for.

"Where the hell have you two been!?" Naruko screamed her lungs out at the two boys. She was beyond furious and didn't care what their excuse was; she was going to beat them up for making her wait so long. This rung true especially for the fact that she was really hungry.

Kakashi hadn't asked the question yet but he too was incredibly interested in the answer that

"I started thinking about some shit that happened in the past and that I didn't care about the people who got affected by me doing nothing." Naruto smartly replied.

He didn't care that the answer he gave was one that went over the top of the head of Naruko. There was only one person who he was directing this to and that was Kakashi. _You be a dick to me, This is what you get _Naruto thought.

Sasuke was of a similar opinion in that he did not like one bit the fact that Kakashi was going to be late all of the time.

There was a slight narrowing of the eye that was so minor that no one noticed that Kakashi actually did this. That was food for thought at a late date though as they now had to make up for lost time and get this started.

"Your task for today will be to one of these two bells. Those who don't get one will be tied to a wooden beam and I will eat lunch in front of you." As this sunk in, the stomach of Azula started to grumble. Since he was her pseudo big brother, she had taken everything he had said at face value and didn't bother looking into it.

It was only now she realised that she would be really hungry.

"Oh and by the way, whoever doesn't get a bell goes back to the academy. Test starts now. Come at me with the intent to kill or otherwise you will simply fail."

Kakashi said in an offhanded manner to which Naruto and Sasuke immediately jumped into the trees.

Naruto for his part thought that failure simply wasn't an option. He had been training very hard for the past five years and a setback like the academy simply wasn't feasible. For him to get to a point where he could make his own decisions, he needed experience in fighting in case anyone came to challenge him.

Sasuke was of a similar vein of thought. There was no way he was going to be able to kill Itachi if he didn't get experience in fighting life and death battles. To add to this the thought of the last remaining member of the Uchiha clan getting sent back to the academy would be a massive embarrassment.

Azula shared the same sentiment as Sasuke in that it would be ridiculously embarrassing for her to not pass this test. The one thought running through her mind was that she believed her parents would be ashamed to see her fail her graduation test. To disappoint their memories would be the worst kind of betrayal she could ever think of.

Naruto and Sasuke shared a look with one another before both launching into the nearby shrubbery. Kakashi having seen this, already knew what was going to happen in the exam.

This left Azula there standing by herself. She didn't mind this though as she was ready to pound the face of Kakashi-niisan for making her not eat any breakfast.

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Azula shouted out as there was a large cloud of smoke enveloping the training ground. When this dissipated, there were forty clones of Azula ready and waiting to kick the ass of Kakashi!

Unfortunately for her, despite all of the clones that she made, not one of them managed to get close enough to Kakashi to take at least one of those bells. Frustrated at this, Naruko followed up that jutsu by making more shadow clones.

This time however, each of them held a kunai in each hand. Once they got the all clear, they threw the kunai and Azula followed up wind a high powered wind ninjutsu.

She didn't twig the fact that if Sasuke had managed to dodge this attack when he saw it head first, then surely, it wouldn't work on Kakashi. Much to her surprise, Kakashi didn't move. Instead he took all of the damage head on.

When Azula realised just what she had done, she was about to scream but before that, Kakashi revealed himself to be a simple shadow clone.

"Oh…" Azula said with a relieved smile on her face. She really didn't want to her big brother.

"You should be aware of your surroundings more Azula -chan." The silver haired man commented as he came from out of the ground. Before she could react, Naruko had already been pulled down into the hole and trapped.

"Ahh! I'll get one of those bells from you if it's the last thing I do!" Naruko screamed out.

"I'm sure you will." Kakashi said as he bent down on his haunches and ruffled the hair of Azula. It was clear to those that knew Kakashi that he thoroughly enjoyed this.

For Naruto and Sasuke who were watching this, they knew that the only way for them to win was to work as a team and hope this was made easier by Kakashi taking it easy on them.

"I'm going now." Naruto whispered into the radio telecom that they were wearing. Naruto quickly followed this up with going through the hand seals which Kakashi had used just so recently. As he got closer, Naruto, still underground used yet another jutsu.

The trap that Kakashi had set was admittedly for someone to simply walk over and trigger the net which was messily buried in the ground. Naruto being Naruto however used some earth manipulation to produce a tiny claw to which appeared between the holes in the net still buried underground for the briefest of seconds.

Said claw quickly and unsuspectingly grabbed the bell and all of this was done without disturbing the trap that Kakashi had set off. It wouldn't be until a minute and a half later when he looked back would he realise that the bell was now missing. It was far too late by then for Kakashi to trace who had done anything because when he tried using his sense of smell, nothing came up.

_Whoever did this was good, far better than a fresh academy genin. _Kakashi was half tempted to promote whoever did this to a fully-fledged genin on this alone. He knew that it wasn't Naruko because he knew all of her attacks and subtlety was not one of them by any stretch of the imagination.

"I can't believe that actually worked…" Sasuke muttered. He wished for a split second that he had earth release so he could have done that.

"Either can I, I expected something a bit harder." Naruto replied through the telecom they had going. "Do you still want me to help out?" The blonde haired boy questioned.

"Not yet. Let me have a go at getting the final one before we team up." Sasuke said to which Naruto didn't argue. He knew that it was only fair considering he got his bell all by himself.

The raven haired Uchiha saw Kakashi standing at the trap which hadn't been exposed yet and he flung multiple kunai and shuriken with precise aim. They would have hit if it wasn't for the replacement jutsu being used by Kakashi.

Using the shunshin no jutsu to great effect, Sasuke rapidly closed the distance from where Kakashi had dodged the instruments of death.

Throwing out a punch, Sasuke totally expected for Kakashi to dodge this. That was why when he did Sasuke didn't hesitate to follow it up with a powerful albeit slow kick to the ribs.

Wondering what he would do when faced in a troublesome situation, Kakashi grabbed a hold of the leg. The raven haired Uchiha bounced up on his standing leg for a singular bounce before launching into a high kick aimed directly at Kakashi's head.

The silver haired man barely managed to dodge this attack and it was only as he did a matrix-esque move that he realised that Sasuke had never been planning on hitting him this entire fight. He was solely going for the bells and placed himself in the perfect position to do that.

Once he realised this, Kakashi quickly tried to manoeuvre his body away from Sasuke whilst still holding onto his leg. Unfortunately for Kakashi, he underestimated the speed in which Sasuke could move.

Channelling chakra into his abs for a faster contraction, Sasuke who was parallel and also face first to the ground contracted his abs in a lightning speed, reached out with his left hand and grabbed the final bell.

With the bell now secured in his left hand, there was only one reasonable thing left for the Uchiha to do. "Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu! (Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke called out.

He had used his right hand to create the jutsu, sucked in a gulp of air and given the fact that he was very close to Kakashi's private areas, there was very little time to react.

_He can use one handed ninjutsu!? Just what have they been feeding these kids? _Kakashi thought to himself quickly before dropping Sasuke. He only barely managed to save his nuts from getting fried. The same couldn't be said for his pants though as there were some small fires that had started which he had to take care of. He didn't want anything indecent showing.

The second he looked over to where Sasuke was, Kakashi noticed the fact that he was long gone.

It was a few minutes later than this when the bell that he had set for the alarm went off.

**x-X-x**

It was no surprise that given the fact that because Naruto and Sasuke each had a bell that Azula was the one out of the three who was tied to a post.

Said blonde haired girl didn't even bother looking up from the ground. The second that she saw that both Naruto and Sasuke had a bell, she felt like crying. The thought of going back to the academy was something that was far too embarrassing to even think about.

Just when she thought that things couldn't get any worse for herself, they did. Her hunger made itself known again by delivering masses of pain. "I'm actually surprised that you managed to gain the bell that I had Naruto, how did you manage do it?" Kakashi questioned.

"Nothing that a bit of Doton manipulation can't fix." Naruto replied with a confident smirk on his face.

"How did Naruto manage to get a bell when I didn't, I mean he's the dead last and I am the kunoichi of the year. "Azula complained loudly. If she had access to her hands, she would be running them through her hair in frustration.

Never the one to shy down from insulting the person who he hated, Naruto spoke up. "The simple fact is that you were never better than me. I purposefully tanked my academy grades the second I found out that the rookie of the year is placed on the same team as the dead last."

_Oh he's definitely passing. _Kakashi thought, not hesitating to come to the decision when he heard what Naruto had done. If it was true, then sacrificing personal achievement and glory for the sake of the team was something that should be rewarded.

"What…?" Azula replied, struggling to come to terms with the bombshell that Naruto had just dropped on her. Her memory seemed to come back to her and she only vaguely remembered Naruto being good when he first came to the academy. She couldn't imagine pretending to be so bad for so long.

"Is this true Sasuke?" One thing that Kakashi had quickly learnt about his potential team was that Naruto and Sasuke were as tight as blood brothers, tighter than Sasuke was with his biological brother.

Sasuke didn't like being put on the spot but he nonetheless spoke up. "Yes, I was going to do it to so Naruto could be top but then we realised that it would be too suspicious for the clan heir to become so bad all of a sudden."

_Both of the boys are getting promoted and I suppose Naruko can improve her teamwork as they train together._

"I am happy to say that you two boys are officially genin but it is not because you got the bells." He didn't say it but he was embarrassed that Naruto and Sasuke each managed to get a bell. It was safe to say that he severely underestimated the two and that he had some serious potential on his squad.

"What do you mean they pass but not for getting a bell!?" Azula demanded an answer. If there was any chance of her being able to pass then she had to know what it was. The shame of being the child of Minato Namikaze and not passing the graduation exam was too much to bear.

"They were both willing to sacrifice personal gain for the sake of the team. There was a famous saying by your father Azula-chan that illustrates this point to perfection." Kakashi stated and when Naruto and Sasuke shared a fist bump, he smiled. Just from that he knew that this team would be much better than his team was.

"The needs of the many outweigh those of the few or the one." Kakashi said and let this pause as he felt that it was vital for his students.

"Being a Konoha shinobi isn't about fame, money or prestige, it's about doing what's best not for yourself but for the village you vowed to protect when you took the oath."

Kakashi would be the first to admit that he wasn't the most extroverted person but he felt that saying this to his students would be worth it for their development as shinobi.

"And I showed none of that…" Azula realised out loud. The haunting realisation that she was going to be back at the academy started coming thick and fast.

"Don't worry, I bet you will be promoted because you're the daughter of the Yondaime Hokage and not because you actually earned it like everyone else."

Knowing a snide comment when he saw one, Kakashi quickly stepped in to make sure that nothing eventuated to damage the team morale.

"Actually, she is getting promoted because of her personality and not because of who her father is. When you get to know her which you will, you will find out that she is a selfless person who is willing to absolutely anything for Konoha and more importantly, those that are close to her." Kakashi replied.

The instant he said this, the head of Naruko rocketed up from looking down at the ground so fast that one would think she gave herself whiplash. "T-t-thank you Kakashi-niisan." Azula replied with a heartfelt response.

"There is only one final thing that I want to tell you three before I officially become your Jonin-sensei and you three become fully fledged genin."

"In the ninja world, those who break the rules are trash, that's true, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. Now let's go and get something to eat, my treat." Kakashi offered to all of his students and not one of them said no.

**With Katsuyu**

Having made her way through the town her friend was staying at, the leader of the slug clan headed towards Tsunade. When she got to the door of the hotel that she was staying in, she shot out a batch of acid, not caring what happened to the door.

After waiting a few seconds, Katsuyu made her way into the apartment. "Lady Tsunade, we need to talk." The slug stated as she motioned over the bed.

Unfortunately the blonde haired woman didn't wake up to this attempt. Crawling over to the mouth of Tsunade, the slug released a rather potent stench from her orifices. Said smell was enough to wake the blonde haired woman up.

"What is that horrible smell?" Tsunade muttered to her barely coherent self. Opening her eyes, the Senju woman noticed that Katsuyu was sitting right on top of her.

Knowing that this would never happen unless it was of the upmost importance, Tsunade's brain kicked into gear and properly woke itself up.

"Katsuyu-sama, it's nice to see you again." Tsunade replied in a business tone of voice.

"We need to talk lady Tsunade." The slug once again said.

Dread built up in the back of Tsunade's mind. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing good which would come from having this conversation, whatever it was about.

Seeing the look on the face of her partner in crime, Katsuyu decided to cut to the chase. "There is a new summoner signed to our contract."

"No." Tsunade flat out refused to believe that. As far as she was concerned and she had long come to the deflating conclusion that she was the last of her clan and nothing would change that.

Knowing that this would happen considering all of the other things that had happened in the life of her summoner, Katsuyu was unfazed. "You know that I would never come and tell you something like that Tsunade-sama without it being true."

Indeed she did know. Apart from Jiraiya, Katsuyu was the only other person who was always there in her time of need and she knew that Katsuyu always had her best interests at heart.

"Tell me everything about them." Tsunade demanded. Despite the tone that it came across in, she didn't mean for it to sound as harsh as it did.

Katsuyu didn't care though. She was more happy at the fact that Tsunade had emotion on this topic. The thought of her being indifferent was something that greatly worried the slug. It meant that she had truly and utterly given up.

"He actually looks quite a lot like you Tsunade-sama. He just became a genin at age 12. He has shaggy blonde hair which goes down to his neck. Blue eyes that are as bright as can be and he has a very angular face. He was wearing baggy clothing so I can't be certain but I think he is very serious about his abilities as a shinobi, something that you could learn to remember." Katsuyu stated.

Ignoring the barb sent her way, Tsunade wanted to know more about him. "What is he like as a ninja?"

"Don't let him know this but he has that special something Hashirama, Tobirama and you to a lesser extent had as kids. I truly believe that he has the potential to be at a low Kage level and that is only in a couple of years' time. If he is given enough time, I can see him being on par with Hashirama." Katsuyu stated with her voice never changing. She was completely confident in this prediction.

_That's a very big claim to make but Katsuyu would never make that without believing it herself. _"So the kid's got a lot of talent. It's too bad that it will probably be cut down before he can ever reach that potential." Despite how much of a cunt she was being at the moment, Tsunade did not wish this on the kid at all. She was just speaking from personal experience.

"There is one final thing that I came to tell you Tsunade, this child is an orphaned kid with no one. He looks up to you a lot. It would be a shame if he met the person you have become compared to the person I know you are capable of being."


	6. You're expecting of me

After he was done taking his students out for lunch, Kakashi made his way over to the Hokage's tower. He had a mission report to give in front of a few of his peers.

"Finally we can get this meeting started…" one of the jonin in the room said when they saw that Kakashi had entered the room. He didn't particularly like having to wait for the famed copy ninja.

When he became one of the youngest ANBU captains in history as well as Konoha's best shinobi on active duty, then he could be as late as he wanted.

Eventually, when it got to Kakashi's turn to speak up about his team, Iruka became nervous. He more than anyone knew that Kakashi didn't like genin going by the rate in which they returned to the academy. He really hoped that Naruto would manage to graduate as he could see a lot of himself in the kid.

Meanwhile, as this was happening, there were multiple people placing bets on the outcome of what happened to Kakashi's students. On one handed there was the fact that it the past 7 teams he has had, he failed all of them. On the other hand, he never had his sensei's daughter and the last Uchiha on those teams.

One person even put 100 ryo on Kakashi sending back yet another team. Kakashi idly assumed that he wouldn't be too happy if he found out that Kakashi had been ordered to pass this team no matter what.

"Team Seven… passed and both bells were taken." For those in the audience who knew of the bell test, they were surprised at this. Hiruzen for his part hadn't even bothered to lift his head up until he heard this information.

"What they got the bells of Kakashi? It must have been Azula-sama and the Uchiha kid who did."

"Even still, there's no way that Kakashi was actually trying. No genin can be that skilled." Another man responded.

"Do explain Kakashi." The Sandaime Hokage ordered. He was in no mood for games considering all of the work that he still had to do.

Kakashi didn't feel like doing that however. "It amazes me how much friends are willing to do for one another." It was no surprise that when Kakashi said this, no one had a clue as to what he meant.

Seeing that there was silence and all of the attention was on him, Kakashi continued on. "It would seem that one of my students overheard the processes when it came to team selections and purposefully altered his exam scores so that he could be on a team with his friend."

This time around there was one person who managed to catch on to what Kakashi was saying. This was none other than Iruka Umino. The smile that formed on the man's face when he heard went from nothing to full blown face splitting.

"Surely you can't be suggesting that the dead last was actually good? To be able to pull off something like that would be chunin, borderline jonin level infiltration skills in maintaining an act where none of the academy sensei's noticed anything."

When it was put like that, Iruka did get a bit deflated at the fact that he didn't spot Naruto tanking but he didn't exactly care. He was far too pleased at the fact that Naruto continued putting in the hard work to be a role model for all orphaned kids.

Kakashi smiled with his lone visible eye. "Hmmm, yeah that's about right." Even the Sandaime Hokage when he heard this found it hard to believe.

"Naruto could easily have been the rookie of the year; he was just unlucky that Sasuke happened to be in that spot this year."

"Are you saying that he's better than the daughter of our late, great Yondaime-sama!?" One man questioned who found it hard to believe that some no name orphan kid was a better shinobi than one born into royalty.

When Kakashi didn't answer, they took the silence as that no, Naruto wasn't as good as his sister.

What they didn't know was just how good Sasuke had been during his fight. Kakashi was absolutely confident in that if Sasuke was that good then Naruto would be just as good or slightly worse since they trained together.

When everything was done and Hiruzen dismissed all of his jonin-senseis, one stayed behind. "Minato-sensei would be rolling in his grave right now because of you."

"It's not as if he can come back and haunt me from the death god's stomach now is it?" Hearing the tone of voice and the lack of care made Kakashi absolutely furious. As much as he wanted to go over there and punch the Hokage in the face, Kakashi knew that even if he did manage to connect with the hit, nothing good would come from it and he would also lose the chance to become close to Naruto.

**x-X-x**

Shizune was literally distraught. For the first time in a long, long time, Lady Tsunade had not touched a shred of Alcohol the whole entire day. For the past day and a half she had been busily trying to work out what it was that had caused this change in attitude from her sensei. All of that had been for naught though as she had not come up with a single plausible explanation for all of this.

If the lack of alcohol consumption was bad enough, the fact that Tsunade had barely said a word the ever since she had woken up yesterday morning troubled Shizune to no end. "Tsunade-sama, is everything all right?" The concerned medic questioned.

Turning her head to face her student, the blonde haired woman casually dismissed her. "I've just got a few things on my mind at the moment Shizune." Tsunade replied.

Being the persistent woman she was, Shizune didn't take this as the end of the conversation. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

For the longest period of time, Tsunade didn't say anything. Five minutes later and she finally spoke up. "I recently found out that there is a new summoner on the slug summoning contract."

Shizune didn't know why this was such a big deal. "Does this mean that they are trying to replace you?" The black haired student questioned.

It was right now that Tsunade realised that she had never told Shizune about the specifics of the slug summoning contract. "No, the slugs only ever allow someone from the Senju clan to sign the contract."

_But I thought they were all… _"That's great news Tsunade-sama!" Shizune said with a massive smile on her face. "This means that you have family out there!"

"Don't you think that I haven't thought about that already?" The blonde haired woman said in a rather harsh tone of voice.

Due to the fact that Tsunade was going through a lot at the moment, Shizune let it slide under the carpet. "Then what seems to be the issue then Tsunade-sama?"

"The problem is that I don't know what to do." There was an audible sigh after Tsunade said this.

"Isn't it obvious Lady Tsunade!? You go and meet them. Show them that they have family out there." It was a bit presumptuous to think that the kid was an orphan but given the nature of being a shinobi, it was a realistic thought path.

"He probably has this high opinion of me and I don't want his opinion of me to be tossed into the gutter."

"Just don't show him that then. Become the person you once were. If you don't then you're not only throwing your life away but you're also harming his. Family is the most important thing in life and if he has none, then you need to be there for him. If you have to, think of it as your duty as clan head and not because you're afraid of commitment."

"I am not afraid of commitment." Tsunade immediately responded on the defensive.

"Then what happened when Jiraiya-sama begged for you to stay with him and you instead chose to abandon Konoha and become a wandering Ninja not affiliated with any Village?" Shizune actually felt good to say this because after all of the times where Tsunade was the one saying harsh things, she finally got to be the one saying them.

"That's because Jiraiya is a raging pervert, not because I'm afraid of commitment." Tsunade quickly denied; too quickly for Shizune's liking.

"We both know that that isn't how it went. You didn't want him to get close to you after what happened to both Dan and Nawaki."

When Shizune expected a rebuttal and didn't get one, she was surprised. The blonde haired woman didn't say anything for a good five minutes.

"What do you think I should do Shizune?" Tsunade questioned. It was times like these where Tsunade let her vulnerable side out. The only other person in the world that she would even consider showing it to was Jiraiya but he was not around.

There was a big smile on the face of Shizune when she heard this. "I think that you should get back into training properly. I can remember you saying that you had been really jealous watching Orochimaru and Jiraiya use their Sage mode abilities when you couldn't get the hang of yours.

Also, you haven't exactly been keeping up with your taijutsu training have you Tsunade-sama?"

When she heard that final comment, there was a look to the eyes of Tsunade. "Shizune… what do you mean by that comment?" Tsunade questioned, daring the girl to respond.

In a bout of courage, Shizune did just that. "You've put on a fair bit of weight Tsunade-sama since we did my evasion practice. All you do nowadays if we get into a situation is rely on your super strength." As she heard Tsunade say this, the Senju woman knew that this was true.

Just from feeling her body, she knew just how far off her prime she was. That was more of a sign of aging than her henge jutsu ever was as far as Tsunade was concerned. "You're right Shizune. It's high time I get back to being the shinobi that made me essentially flee on sight during the war with Suna."

Shizune was giddy when she had heard this. For the first time since they had left Konoha, the black haired woman felt that she was getting her sensei back.

**x-X-x**

For the first time since forever, Sasuke found himself sitting alone with Azula. Naruto had gone to have a look at his business first hand and Kakashi simply wasn't around.

It left the two teammates to have the first proper conversation if they so choose to. Azula being Naruko wasn't going to turn down this chance. "Sasuke why do you hate me? I mean I know why Naruto does because he comes from a less privileged background but why do you hate me? You come from just as good a background as I do." Azula quietly questioned. Whenever she had asked before, she got a frosty response. She hoped that asking nicer would help her out.

What Sasuke responded with was something that surprised her. "I don't hate you." There was a look of indifference on his face when he said this though.

"Yes you do, you're always calling me names, blocking all attempts when I try to become your friends and you are always trying to make me feel like crap." Let it not be said that Azula Namikaze was afraid of confrontation.

"If you actually paid attention, you would realise that all of those things were said by Naruto and not me." Throughout all of this, the book that Sasuke Uchiha was reading was more important than the conversation with Azula as far as he was concerned.

As she went back on memories, Naruko realised that he was right. Apart from a comment once, Sasuke had never said anything bad to her. This only begged the question though… "So why are you so against being my friend then Sasuke?"

"Because Naruto doesn't like you." Sasuke said without raising his head from the fictional book he was reading.

"What so just because Naruto doesn't like me means that I can't be your friend?" when he heard this, Sasuke raised an eyebrow. She wanted to be his friend not wanting him to be her friend. Sasuke realised that she was actually serious about this.

"Naruto is my best friend. I don't want to ruin a friendship that has been going for 5 years because of some other potential friendship that probably won't last long considering all of your other friends."

It was only now that Azula realised what true friendship was. To see just how far Sasuke was willing to go for Naruto made her wish that she had someone she would do that for.

Azula knew that she would trade all of them to be able to have a friend she could put all of her trust and faith in and not get it betrayed. The closest person she could think of to this was Ino and she hoped that she could develop that level of friendship.

"The truth is I don't really care enough about you to be your friend or to hate you. You don't even come up on my radar."

It was refreshing to hear this for Azula. She had heard lots of things in her rather short life but this was something that she hadn't heard before. If anything, having this conversation with Sasuke made her want to become friends with the boy and find out even more about him; he was kind of cute also.

**x-X-x**

"**Having barely passed our test Sasuke, it is now time to begin your training as a shinobi with the Hayabusa Clan.**"

If there was one thing that Sasuke Uchiha didn't like hearing, it was that he barely passed something. He was the type of person who always excelled in what he did whether it be shinobi related or even his hobbies outside of work. When he only barely passed the test, Sasuke got annoyed.

He thought that having an elemental affinity to two elements but apparently the Falcon clan only cared about how strong his affinity to the ration element was. They didn't care about how good his chakra control was if his natural chakra reserves weren't high enough.

There were some things that you couldn't teach and that was exactly what the Hayabusa clan were looking for. They didn't just want hard work; that was the standard; anyone could give a good work ethic. They were looking for those once in a generation shinobi who went on to become truly great.

What the Uchiha didn't know was that they said this to every single shinobi who signed their summoning contract as a way of pushing them further. As far as they were concerned, he was the most complete shinobi that they had ever seen in terms of when they signed the contract.

This wasn't even including the fact that he had a fully developed Sharingan. There was every hope that there clan could rise to power with the second coming of Madara Uchiha as their representative in the human realm.

Ever since the betrayal of the Yotsuki clan, the falcons had been looking for someone knew to represent them and they couldn't be happier at what they got in Sasuke.

"**We will teach you a few jutsus but the primary focus of this training will be to prepare your body for what our clan specialises in.**"

Sasuke merely nodded at this. Doing this would be much better for the future of Sasuke as a shinobi and he was more than willing to be able to learn the prized jutsus of the falcon clan as soon as possible.

"**Be prepared as this will be the most brutal training that you have ever done and will ever do.**" The only response that Sasuke Uchiha gave was a smirk. He was confident that if he put in the hard yards, then he was going to get every bit and more in return.

**x-X-x**

Unlike the testing procedures that Sasuke had to go through, Naruto didn't have to do any of that. Instead he simply had to summon a slug, let it know that he wanted to be reverse summoned to their world for training and that was that.

He even got private lessons from the clan leader Katsuyu whereas Sasuke had to learn the basics from one of the lower members of the clan.

"**Good afternoon Naruto-kun.**" Katsuyu stated to the blonde haired boy.

"**Good afternoon to you to Katsuyu-sama.**" Naruto replied with a slight bow. After hearing how demanding the Hayabusa Clan was with Sasuke, Naruto realised that he had it slightly easier than his friend and wanted to show his gratitude for that.

"**Naruto-kun, as you may be aware, summoning clans each have their own skillset which they pass down to their respective ninjas as a trademark. We are no different and despite the fact that you have the Mokuton bloodline limit, we expect you to learn this new style of jutsu as a priority.**" Katsuyu stated to the blonde haired genin.

If he was honest with himself, Naruto was a little bummed when he heard this. He hoped that they could focus working on his Mokuton since he hadn't done much with it so far. All of the information he had on it was only what the Uchiha clan and that made it damn hard for Naruto to recreate jutsus from scratch.

"**Now Naruto, what do you know about medical ninjutsu?**" Katsuyu questioned.

"All I know about it is that it takes a lot of chakra control to learn and you have to study a lot about the human body for it. Also the benefit of being able to save someone's life rather than kill them like so many other ninjutsus is good. Tsunade-sama and Hashirama-sama are both highly respected because of this ability though and hopefully I can become half as good as them!"

Katsuyu smiled. "**That is the perfect answer Naruto-kun. Many people look down on shinobies who specialize in medical ninjutsu because they not as proficient in killing. This is until they become injured themselves and require the help of a medic. One of the only things in life that I dislike is people who look down upon medical ninjutsu.**"

Naruto for his part when he heard this was shocked. He didn't know that there was such a stereotype that actually existed. It was at that point that Naruto also decided that he too didn't like people who looked down on the medical profession.

"**Now, Unlike other branches of jutsus, this and fuinjutsu are the only ones where you have to do extensive study before you can even learn the most basic of jutsus under the jutsu tree.**

**Here is a scroll that has been written personally by Tsunade-sama. In it, it has all you need to know and more for learning the basic diagnostic jutsu.**" Katsuyu stated as she produced a scroll from only god knows where.

Realising that he was getting something from his only living family member, Naruto was extremely touched. He promised himself that he would treasure the scroll and do Tsunade proud by learning everything as soon as possible.

As she saw the look of determination on the face of Naruto, Katsuyu smiled. She was couldn't believe what a few days had done to her clan. It had gone from being a bottom feeder with no turn around in site to having their famed summoner become serious once more and also gain the prodigy of all prodigies as far as she was concerned. Katsuyu knew that give a few years' time, the Namekuji clan would be back up amongst the top of the summoning clans.

**x-X-x**

She had to admit, this training that she had been doing was making her feel better than ever. This also may have been down to the fact that she had gone cold turkey on alcohol since she decided to become serious about her training.

The most notable thing that one with extensive knowledge on the woman could tell was that gone was the flabby stomach and massive boobs filled with fat. She was a couple sizes smaller and her boobs had gone to their natural D-cup size. She could now wear proper fitting training bras and she loved it.

She could just imagine the look on the face of Jiraiya once he realised that her boobs had gotten smaller. She supposed though that he would let that slide considering the fact how overall shredded her body looked.

The place where she had put on the most muscle was in her glutes over the past four months. She wondered whether the pervert would go from staring at her boobs to her ass once he saw how much she had changed. Knowing him, he would just stare at both.

One thing she was happy about her own appearance was the amount of fat she had lost. The muscles in her arms, legs and even her abs were now slightly poking out from underneath the fat. This was in comparison to before where she had no muscle whatsoever due to atrophy over the years when she was relying on her chakra enhanced strength.

She lost a dress size but even if she put on two, Tsunade felt a million times better than four months ago.

Another thing that had drastically improved over the time was her chakra reserves. Since she had not needed to use a large portion of it during her extended break of being an active shinobi, Tsunade's chakra reserves had decreased with chakra atrophy.

That was a moot point now as Tsunade had been practicing hard with her chakra as she incorporated into her training and she was finally seeing results.

It had taken four months but Tsunade was confident in saying that she was now back to the point where she had been during the Third Great Shinobi War. The lone thought in the back of the mind of Tsunade was that maybe it was time for her to go back to the Shikkotsu Forest. With the seriousness she was putting into her training now being much higher than what it was when she previously tried, Tsunade was confident that she could learn at least a bastardized version of Sage Mode like her teammate.

**x-X-x**

"Kakashi, I have a mission for you." Hiruzen stated to the copy ninja.

As he heard this, Kakashi knew that he didn't have a choice but to go said mission. "So what's happening with my genin?"

"They will be taking D-ranked missions whilst you are away on your mission." Hiruzen replied not taking his eyes off of the paperwork in front of him.

Seeing that it was now time to go, Kakashi made his way to where his students would be waiting for him.

**x-X-x**

As the trio of shinobi made their way through the Hokage tower to the mission room, they wondered what type of mission they were going to get. All three of them really hoped that it wasn't another mission of catching Tora the cat. This was despite the fact that Team Seven had acquired the record for the fastest ever time to complete the mission.

They felt that it was finally time for a mission where they did something that wasn't trivial and meaningless.

It was just their luck that the trio of shinobi happened to get a D-ranked mission outside of the village. There was a farmer who had a problem with some animal eating his crops.

They weren't complaining as at least this meant that they could finally leave the village for the first time. Sasuke wasn't too concerned with this but both Naruto and Azula couldn't wait. They wanted to see what life was like outside of Konoha.

With the mission scroll in Sasuke's hand, the trio of genin shinobi headed to their respective homes so that they could prepare for the mission.

**x-X-x**

In an undisclosed location, there was a ninja covered in gear knelt in front of his master. "It has been done Danzo-sama" was all the ninja said.

Danzo didn't even bat an eyelash when he heard this or give off any confirmation that he heard this until he spoke up. "Very well then, prepare for your mission."


	7. Every step that I take

Both Sasuke and Naruto realised that they shouldn't be going on this type of mission without a jonin-sensei accompanying them; it was not the right thing to do. They didn't care though. If everything went bad, they could blame it on the mission hall for assigning them the wrong mission.

The two boys had been frustrated for a long time that they had never had a mission which was above babysitting, picking up rubbish or chasing after a cat.

They had decided that they wanted to go on this mission to prove that they were capable of bigger and better things. After all, if they didn't go on this, when would be the next time that they as Team Seven managed to get another chance to showcase their skills?

Azula meanwhile also knew that this was bad and she was contemplating asking Kakashi-niisan what they should do. However… the blonde haired girl also knew that if she did this it would drive a massive wedge between the team and she wasn't sure if it would ever be able to be repaired.

Sasuke had been nice enough ever since their conversation a while ago whilst Naruto was still mean to her. If she did go and tell Kakashi then the label of teacher's pet would be on her forever. The chance of becoming friends with them would also go up in smoke.

For the sake of the team, Azula decided that she would go along with the mission. She just hoped that everything worked out in the end and nobody got seriously hurt.

**x-X-x**

With everything packed and having made it past the gate guards of Konoha, the trio of shinobi set out for their first mission outside of the village.

When the question of who was the mission leader was aired, it took a while but in the end it was Sasuke who used his position as the rookie of the year to become the leader.

Naruto didn't like this at all but knew nothing would happen considering Naruko supported Sasuke.

The trio of genin level shinobi made their way to a remote towards the border that the land of fire shared with Kawa no Kuni. What they didn't know was that there were three shinobi who had started trailing them ever since they left the sight of Konoha.

Had these ninjas been wearing official ninja attire, then it would have been weird to see Konoha ANBU trailing Konoha genin.

As Team Seven made their way through the countryside, Naruto and Sasuke were admittedly surprised at the fact that Azula had not said a word about the mission. Just from the look on the girl's face, they knew that that she knew this was wrong and yet she continued going on the mission.

Seeing this, Sasuke privately thought that he and Naruto at least deserved to treat her as a teammate instead of the co-worker they had been treating her as previously.

When they got 5km away from the destination, the trio of genin ranked shinobi took a chance to have a break, drink some water and have a ration bar or two.

Sitting with his legs which were in a diamond shape, Naruto quickly did a jutsu with his legs covering anyone trying to see what he was doing unless they were head on. As he placed his hands on the dirt below, Naruto's eyes widened for a split second.

This was enough for Sasuke with his keen eyesight to spot. Staring at his friend, Sasuke saw Naruto motion down to his hands with his eyes. _Three ninjas, chunin level; 400 metres directly behind me._

Sasuke gave the faintest of signs that he acknowledged this newfound information. Just because the presence of foreign ninja was around, Sasuke knew that they couldn't back out of the mission. They were already taking a massive risk even coming on this mission in the first place.

Plus, if they quit now, then all of their training would be for nothing. No, Team Seven would continue on this mission and complete it. After all they had a Senju with the Mokuton, an Uchiha with the Sharingan activated and also the daughter of the Yondaime Hokage amongst their team.

They were training to become more than Kages, they wanted to be one man army's like their ancestors. If they couldn't survive this than they didn't deserve to be shinobi as far as Naruto and Sasuke were concerned.

With their energy supplies refuelled and their minds refreshed, Team Seven headed to the client's location.

As they passed through a fence, Sasuke knocked on the front door of a man's house. Eventually half a minute had passed and the door started to open.

"You don't look like the ninjas that I hired. You're just a bunch of kids!" The farmer exclaimed as she looked down at the trio in shock.

"You're more than welcome to turn down our support if you want Civilian-san. You will still have to pay the full mission price because we came all the way out here and you decided that you didn't need us anymore." Sasuke coolly replied. There was not a single change in the tone of voice showing off that he had complete control over the situation at hand.

_Yeah, I can see why Ino likes him so much, he is pretty cool. _Just because she thought that Sasuke was cool, this meant in no way, shape or form that she was interested in being more than his friend.

The farmer spluttered as he tried to come to a response for the proposition that Sasuke. He didn't. "Fine, well you better be able to do what I am paying you for otherwise I will be demanding a refund."

"Just because we are young does not mean for a second that we are unskilled" and with that said, Sasuke turned around and started thinking of a way to take care of the man's problem.

"Okay, Azula, I want you to make about twenty clones and have them search for the hideout of the wolf pack. According to the mission report there are three wolves that are terrorizing our client's farm." Sasuke stated to his teammate.

Azula gave a firm nod and instantly created the desired amount of clones before having them head in each and every direction.

Five minutes later and Azula's head sprung up. "Okay, I know where they are, follow me." The girl said to which both Naruto and Sasuke followed her without question.

When they got to the site of the crime, Naruto and Sasuke now saw what the clone of Azula saw. There was a medium sized cave to which they all heard a growling noise coming from inside.

As he created a jutsu with both hands, Sasuke watched as a makeshift torch appeared on the edge of his left hand. With his right, Sasuke got a kunai from his pouch and headed to the edge. Naruto and Azula each had a kunai in hand as they prepared for their first ever mission that wasn't menial in their eyes.

Four wolves came out from the cave. Each of them was barring their respective fangs at the Konoha trio. Sasuke was the first to act. Throwing the kunai as hard as he could, the metal sailed through the air aimed directly at the pack leader's head.

Said wolf didn't know what it was that had been thrown at him. It was far too late to be able to dodge once the realisation that whatever it was, it wouldn't be good to allow that to hit him. The kunai that Sasuke threw pierced through flesh, cartilage and bone to connect with the brain of the wolf.

Death occurred on impact.

Angered at the site of one of their pack mates getting killed, the three remaining wolves charged at their enemy. They knew that they could only do damage close up whereas Naruto, Sasuke and Azula could do it from far away.

Sasuke had no problem throwing another kunai with precise accuracy straight at one of the wolves. He had been baptised by what some of the most ruthless shinobi would call harsh. Seeing a little bit of blood was nothing new to him and death was something that he became accustom to a long time ago.

Knowing that Sasuke had no trouble with this, Naruto knew that he had to be the same. If he was going to become the best shinobi that the world had ever seen and one that would make the Senju clan proud, then he would no doubt have to kill later on in his career. It was better to get used to it now rather than choke up later on at a critical point.

Azula for her part knew that this was something that she had to do but for the life her, she couldn't pull the metaphorical trigger. The guilt that she knew she would be feeling for killing even a wolf was something that she didn't want to deal with.

She choked. Azula didn't throw her kunai.

Just as the wolf was closing in on her location with its fangs ready to rip her face off, Sasuke came to the rescue.

With yet another kunai in his hand, Sasuke sped off at a perpendicular angle to the wolf and slammed the pointy end of the kunai straight into the temple of the wolf.

It collapsed onto the floor immediately.

"I thought you weren't like the others…" Sasuke sneered at the girl who didn't respond for a moment.

"S-sorry, I choked for a second then. I promise that it won't happen again!" Azula vowed with determination. She hated the fact that she did nothing even more than what Naruto and Sasuke did.

"Well then what better way than now." A new voice suddenly said as it entered the conversation. The weird thing was that it came from beneath them as a man popped up out of the ground.

He had a kunai in hand and it was aimed directly at the jugular vein of Sasuke Uchiha. The disguised ROOT ninja's plan was to help quicken the process of activating the Sharingan. As per his mission briefing the most effective way to activate was in a life or death situation.

What he did not expect was for Sasuke to dodge his attack without activating the Sharingan in any form. The speed and reaction time he had used were far beyond what genin ninjas should possess.

It was safe to say that Danzo never truly did his homework on the up and coming Uchiha ninja.

Watching as the Uchiha dodged the incoming attack, the ninja jumped back a few metres. He was met by his partners in crime. It turned into a face off where Naruto, Sasuke and Naruko stood facing off against a missing nin from Iwagakure and two missing ninjas from Kumogakure.

Danzo hoped that with the humiliation and defeat at the hands of these ninjas that Team Seven would develop grudges against Konoha's biggest threats.

"What the hell was that for!?" Azula shouted out at the enemy.

"You Konoha scum can go and get fucked by a cactus you dirty inbred trash." The Iwagakure ninja shouted back in response.

"Azula, being the one who took the most pride in her village got offended the most at this.

"Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu)  
Azula called out after she had thrown a kunai straight at the three ninjas. She produced fifty copies of the lethal weapon.

Having seen this jutsu a million times beforehand, the disguised shinobi easily knew that blocking it was not an option. The three missing Nins jumped back as far and as fast as they could to dodge the incoming attack.

Thankfully for them they had surrounding foliage which included large oak trees to take the full brunt of the damage. "That was a stupid thing to do. Now we don't have sight of them." Naruto quickly said.

Knowing that there would be an argument here if he did nothing, Sasuke quickly intervened. "That also means that they can't see us."

Naruto immediately went through some hand seals. When he planted his hands on the ground, two clones made out of mud formed out of the ground. With a nod, the first one entered the forest through the main pathway from where they were standing.

"You two take go and enter from the front. I will go around the back and cause a distraction from the back and you use this chance to take out one of them." Whist Sasuke was annoyed when he heard Naruto say this because was team leader; Sasuke did not fault the plan of his best friend one bit. It was the exact same plan that he had formed.

Despite the fact she knew how dangerous this situation was with enemy ninja around, Azula knew that she had to give this mission her all. If those ninjas tried to kill Sasuke earlier, then it meant that they would have no trouble attempting to kill again. She had to remain vigilant and focused. She didn't want any damage to come to her or her team.

"Naruto-san… be careful."

"Yeah, I will be sure not to mess up your mission record princess." Naruto called out spitefully before darting off to the right.

The blonde haired girl, when she heard this hung her head. It seemed like no matter what she did, she would never become friends with her teammates.

"Forget about him Azula-chan. He's just being an asshole; I'll talk to him later on. Just keep your head up and stay focused." It was awkward for him to say but Sasuke knew that he had to have the girl firing on all cylinders.

He didn't know how strong these ninjas were and although he and Naruto were hiding a lot of their skillsets, he didn't know whether or not Naruko could handle this.

As the team leader, it was his job to motivate his troops and help them fire on all cylinders. Had he not been in the situation he was in, Sasuke would have narrowed his eyes at his brother in all but blood and have a chat with him later on. Given that the morale and clear mind of Azula though was crucial, Sasuke did something that he wasn't accustomed to.

He talked to a girl that he wasn't related to on his own accord for the first time about something other than insulting her.

Putting up a brave face, Azula turned around to Sasuke. "Thanks Sasuke-kun, now come on, we've got a mission to do."

_She's different. She's better than all of the others._

**x-X-x**

The disguised ROOT ninja were surprised at the amount of time that it took for Team Seven to come after them. From all the reports they had been briefed on, the Yondaime's daughter was incredibly passionate about her home and any insult flung her way would cause her to lose control to her anger.

The plan was to draw the Kyubi's jinchuuriki into the forest with the two teammates to follow in after him. They would then fall prey to the trap that and ambush the team causing a full on fight to break out.

It would be here where they completed the primary mission objective for Danzo. The illegitimate child of the Yondaime would be killed killing three birds with one stone.

If word ever got out that the hierarchy which ruled over Konoha split up the children of Minato Namikaze at birth after he sacrificed himself, the city would be in uproar. Not only that but Konoha would lose a lot of the good reputation that it prided itself on when it came to seducing potential clients and keeping existing ones.

With the death of Naruto Uzumaki serving as the catalyst for the Kyubi jinchuuriki getting in touch with her demon's chakra and the activation of the Sharingan, it was a calculated risk to kill off the son of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki.

It was not as if the Uchiha and the Jinchuuriki would ever find out what had actually happened to their teammate.

When they saw their target walk through the forest, the chunin didn't take the bait. They knew that it was pointless for them to kill the genin unless the Uchiha and jinchuuriki watched. They wanted to get the most out of it as it would point them straight down Danzo's path once he talked to them.

It was then that one of the chunin noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was a Naruto coming at him with a kunai in his hand. Quickly dodging the jab of the knife the former Kumogakure ninja yanked the kunai out of the hand of Naruto and viciously punched the kid straight in the face.

It was much to his surprise that the blonde haired ninja turned into mud. "The jinchuuriki knows Doton jutsus." The ninja said informing his team of what to expect.

When his comrades turned around to see if there was a follow up from that direction, Naruto saw this as his opportunity. Coming out from the ground below with his enemies none the wiser, Naruto jabbed a kunai right into the Achilles tendon / ankle bone of the other Kumogakure Ninja.

Before the man could even react, Naruto slipped back under ground.

Despite all of the emotional conditioning he had under ROOT ANBU training, the man still could not hold back the pained scream. "Ahh!" The ROOT ninja screamed out in pain. With the weapon still left at the scene of the crime, the Kumogakure and Iwagakure missing nins saw the damage that Naruto had done.

It was only now that they realised just what they were up against and that they couldn't take things lightly. The second that they saw Naruko and Sasuke enter the clearing, both of the ROOT chunin charged at them.

As he was charging at Sasuke, the Kumogakure chunin pulled out a sword from his sheath and prepared to swing it in a downward motion.

He was moving as fast as he possibly could and yet even with the threat of his katana, the Sharingan of the Uchiha had yet to be activated.

As he dodged the swing of the sword, Sasuke Uchiha gathered up a fair amount of lighting chakra in his fist and swung viciously at the face of the enemy. As he was a two handed swordsmen, the chunin ninja had overcommitted and he wasn't in a position to defend himself properly.

As he copped the full brunt of the attack in the face, the man got sent back down to the ground.

Before Sasuke could follow up on this, there was an explosion right next to him. In that split second his triple tomoe Sharingan spotted an explosive tag that was stuck onto that had been planted on the left hip bone of Azula Namikaze.

The blast was enough to throw Sasuke down to the ground as well as disorientate him. He felt a stinging sensation in his arm and noticed that he was bleeding from multiple locations on his right arm.

Azula for her part screamed in pain as when she looked down at her side which was previously covered in thick orange jumper and track suit pants, she saw fragments of her hip bone lying on the ground beside her.

Blood was pouring out from the wound and she could honestly say that this was the most painful thing that she had ever experienced.

Naruto, who was still underground when he saw this with only his head poking out of the ground, knew that he had to take action. He couldn't let this go on any more. He didn't know how much damage had been done to the princess of Konoha but it looked pretty damn serious. With the amount of blood she was losing at the moment, he wasn't sure that he was skilled enough to prevent that from turning fatal.

Popping up out of the ground enough to use his arms, Naruto jammed the kunai in his hand straight into the jugular vein of his enemy.

Death was instant.

Pulling himself up from out of the ground, Naruto started going over to Azula. He had already completed the hand seals for the mystic palm jutsu and planned to repair as much of Azula's hip as possible.

What Naruto failed to take into account was the fact that the man who he had stabbed in the ankle had managed to get into a position where he could use jutsu.

He used the trademark jutsu of the famed Uchiha clan.

As the raven haired Uchiha saw this and noticed that Naruto also had his back turned, Sasuke got into position and quickly did the same jutsu. Sasuke however channelled a much larger amount of chakra into his lungs and produced a much large fireball. He had to force back the previous one which was already travelling at a much faster rate.

The fireball that Sasuke created triumphed over the one that the Kumogakure Ninja created and due to the fact that he had a severely reduced range of mobility, the grand fireball overpowered and pushed all of the fire right onto the man.

He was cooked on the spot.

As all of this was happening, the forgotten man was the makeshift missing Iwagakure ninja. He had taken a fairly large amount of damage himself from planting the explosive tag on the jinchuuriki.

By the time he regained his senses, he knew he was outnumbered and needed to complete his mission even if it costed him his life. Pulling out a kunai, the man channelled wind natured chakra into the instrument of death and flung it at the son of Minato Namikaze.

Even if he died, for the sake of Konoha, Naruto Uzumaki had to die.

Once again, Naruto didn't see this coming as it was right at the edge of his periphery vision. To make matters worse, Sasuke wasn't able to bail Naruto out this time as it was also at the edge of his periphery as well.

The crippled Azula Namikaze however did manage to see it as she looked away from her injury for the first time. It was during this passing glance to hopefully forget about the pain for a second or two, that Naruko spotted the kunai flying straight for Naruto.

In spite of the pain that she was in, Azula knew that she had a duty to do even if Naruto might not be willing to do the same thing.

Adrenaline in the form of the Kyubi's chakra kicked in Azula's time of need. Her red eyes and pronounced whisker marks leapt up from the ground and pushed Naruto down to the ground.

Shocked at Azula's behaviour, Naruto watched in slow motion as a wind chakra coated kunai pierced straight through Azula's right lung. Before she even hit the ground, Naruto had already started screaming in protest about how she shouldn't have done that.

Sasuke turned around in a split second and what he saw was a sight that haunted him. It reminded him of the helplessness he felt during the massacre at the hands of his elder brother. With a rage like no other, Sasuke sped off at a speed in which a lot of jonin would have trouble following thanks to enhancing his muscles with lightning chakra.

As he was doing this, Sasuke started producing a massive amount of lightning chakra in his hand, so much so that blue lightning formed on the edge of his hand.

"Piercing Beak" Sasuke called out with his hand in a beak like position and jabbed his hand right through the heart of his enemy. The death instantaneous but Sasuke didn't feel any better knowing that Azula was probably going to die given the fact that the kunai had gone through one side of her body and out of the other.

Getting up as fast as he could, Naruto redid the seals for the mystic palm jutsu and placed them over the hole in Azula's chest. Immediately, Naruto started channelling medical chakra through to the wound as best as he could.

It was times like these that Naruto really wished he had started taking up medical ninjutsu before he met the slug clan. If he had, then he was confident that he would be even better than what he was now.

As all of this was happening, due to the shock of the injuries that she had sustained, Naruko's brain had sent her into a coma. This was done so that her body could use all of its resources for healing itself and not less important things like being awake at this point in time.

"Come on! Don't die on me Azula-chan!" Naruto screamed out as he was sending green coloured chakra into her system with his hand over the wound over her breast.

It was then that something happened. He didn't know it at the time but looking at the situation in review, Azula very much welcomed it.

There was an extremely potent red chakra that flowed through the body of Azula. He didn't know what it was but from the looks of things, it was helping Naruto in the healing of Azula. The blonde haired boy did not complain for a second. Naruto quickly realised that the red chakra was actually healing his teammate much faster and more importantly more efficient than what he was capable of. He wondered what kind of bloodline Azula had.

It came at a cost though.

Whatever the red chakra was, Naruto started feeling a burning sensation when it came into contact with his hands. In spite of this, Naruto knew that if he stopped healing her, then she would die. The Uzumaki genin persevered through the pain with gritted teeth and continued to repair the wound. Naruto even went so far as to hiss in pain.

After five minutes of constant healing of the injury to her lung, Naruto was confident in that the red chakra was capable enough of fully repairing the rest of the damage.

This didn't mean his job was done though as he immediately moved over to her hip.

Naruko had lost a lot of energy during this process and her body had failed to produce enough plasma to the injury to clot the blood and stop it from bleeding. This meant that Azula was losing a ton of blood and nothing had been done to stop it.

Naruto quickly put an end to that and as soon as his green chakra coated hands came in contact with the wound, the red chakra flared as if responding to the medicinal chakra being inserted into the wound.

The combined effort of the Kyubi and Naruto worked in stopping the blood from leaving Naruko's body. Again, Naruto did not let up for a second because he knew that if he left the wound like this, he would leave her body vulnerable to a whole host of parasites and diseases just waiting to enter Naruko's body.

Once the blood coagulated, the first thing that Naruto started repairing was the hip bone of the blonde haired girl.

Adrenaline was pumping through the body of Naruto at the highest that it had ever been. He was pumped beyond reckoning; so much so that he didn't realise that his chakra was running low. Naruto powered on and started recreating Naruko's hip flexor muscle from scratch which had been blown up.

Finally, once Naruto had finished rebuilding the ligaments, tendons and muscles that went into the hip, he started working on the skin of Azula. Sweat was pouring down from his body and he was feeling pretty tired but Naruto was determined to complete the healing process before quitting. He owed his life to Azula and he would be damned if he didn't do everything he possibly could to repay her back tenfold.

Naruto struggled to dredge up the absolute last slivers of chakra in his body as sweat poured down his body. Finally, when he got to the point where all there was on the side of Azula's hip was a 1cm scab, he decided that he simply couldn't do any more and that what he had done was good enough.

The second that he did this, the adrenaline that was pulsating through his body gave out and Naruto immediately passed out on the spot due to chakra exhaustion.

Due to the severity of just how much chakra Naruto had used, he didn't even have enough control over his body to choose where he landed. Naruto fell face forward with his face landing in a rather awkward position.

It would be the secret of Sasuke Uchiha that Naruto landed face first onto Azula's lower lips. At least the remains of pants and underwear were still covering the modesty of the teenage girl.

This little funny situation was not enough to change the mindset of Sasuke. Even though he had killed the majority of the enemies today, the raven haired Uchiha still felt like absolute shit for not being able to come through in the clutch when it mattered.

In his brain which was going at the speed of light, Sasuke Uchiha had the place of mind to remember that the threat was still not over. There was still the threat of some unknown animal coming into the clearing and getting some trouble free lunch.

It was up to him to man the fort and take care of his incapacitated team.

Sasuke was really second guessing himself for choosing to go on this mission.


	8. is another mistake to you

Looking down at the passed out Naruto who was on top of the unconscious Azula, Sasuke got to work in ensuring the survival of his team. The first thing that he did was remove Naruto from being face first on Azula. The easier he could make his friend's breathing, the better.

It was when he did this that Sasuke Uchiha noticed the blood which was pouring from the hands of his best friend. He didn't realise it but from halfway down his forearms, Naruto's arms were drenched in blood; there wasn't even a single spec of skin that could be seen as it was all covered in a red liquid.

The raven haired Uchiha really hoped that it was only Azula's blood on his best friend's hands; unfortunately for him, it wasn't.

Creating a shadow clone, Sasuke ordered it to carry Naruto with absolute care. As the clone did this, Sasuke himself got down and carefully picked up Naruko. The opinion of the Uchiha was that Naruko was the one who was more injured. He had just seen a hole created in her chest. You don't recover from that easily.

What he didn't know was that Naruto was actually in a far more dangerous condition because of how dangerously low his chakra levels were. Naruto Uzumaki didn't have a source that could heal him even when he was doing nothing. He also didn't have a practically unlimited chakra supply to fuel said healing procedures.

With both of his comrades taken care of, Sasuke took them to the cave in which the original mission took place. Just from the interactions Sasuke had had with the client, the raven haired Uchiha knew that he wouldn't welcome the trio of ninjas into his home in their time of need.

Now that they were in a safe location, Sasuke took out a scroll from his pocket and unsealed it. Inside the scroll was a medical kit. Despite the fact that Naruto was the team's unofficial medic, Sasuke had taken up learning the basics in case he was in a situation just like this.

The first thing that Sasuke did was get out latex gloves. He didn't want to get a disease and also didn't want to infect Naruto with any dirt on his fingers.

As best as he could, given the position that he was in and the rather limited source of resources, Sasuke tipped some water out of his bottle onto Naruto's hands to get rid of most of the blood and wash away any dirt. Once this was done, Sasuke used tissues to dry up the wound whilst not aggravating it to re rupture the wounds and cause them to bleed once more.

Once this was done, the raven haired Uchiha, as best as he could wrapped white medical gauze tape over the wounds to the point where they were completely covered.

It was only from looking at the injuries that Naruto suffered from that Sasuke realised just how potent the red chakra coming off of Azula was.

The only bright side out of all of this was that he didn't have to do anything for Azula. She seemed to doing well on her own thanks to whatever it was that was helping her.

It was a coincidence that right then, once everything was now taken care of, Sasuke realised that he was hungry. Grabbing a ration bar and a piece of fruit from his backpack, Sasuke sat down on guard, hoping that his team would recover without any permanent injuries.

**x-X-x**

There were alarm bells ringing loudly in the head of Kakashi Hatake. He was the first person to arrive at his team's meeting spot. There had been occasions where Kakashi had arrived before Naruto and Sasuke but he had never arrived before Azula.

It was now half an hour after he normally arrived at his meet and greet location and Kakashi had still seen absolutely no sign of the trio of genin shinobi at all. Using the rather limited sensory abilities that he had, Kakashi tried to see if his students were even bothering to come to their training session.

He wasn't really surprised when he couldn't sense them. _Guess I have to go search for them._

The first place that Kakashi tried was the two story large house of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. He really hoped that it was only down to the fact that Naruko had forgotten about the meeting or that she had simply slept in.

When he got to the house and searched for the girl, his search came up empty. Next up was the pride and joy of Azula, the Ichiraku Ramen bar. Once again this part of the search came up empty.

The alarm bells started ringing loudly inside the mind of Kakashi and a sinking feeling started appearing in his stomach. Things weren't looking good.

After coming to the conclusion that he couldn't Azula, he hoped that by going to the Uchiha complex, he would find Sasuke and with that he would know where Naruto was.

As he made his way to the south west section of Konoha, Kakashi came to a large wall. Jumping over it, it was a like travelling back to the past. He hadn't been here since the funeral of Obito and yet the place looked the exact same from what he remembered.

The only difference this time around though was that there was no one around. As he traversed through the ghost town, Kakashi was surprised when he came across a large field which had a massive amount of crops of multiple types of fruit and vegetables. It was far too big to be a food garden just for one person so Kakashi decided that it couldn't hurt to take a fruit as a snack.

When he got over there, he was surprised to see a rather vicious Venus fly trap plant surrounding the perimeter of the crops. He almost lost a chunk of flesh but Kakashi successfully navigated the Venus fly traps and got an apple.

As he bit into it, he could definitely see why whoever it was that managed these plants was so invested in them. It only begged the question of who managed the food garden because he was confident that Sasuke was not into at all.

Getting rid of that train of thought as there were much more important things for him to be doing right now, Kakashi went about finding his Uchiha student.

He did not like it at all when his search came up empty. He had searched the entire complex and there was no sign or even a nearby chakra signature even remotely familiar to the one that Sasuke had.

This did not look good at all for the Copy Ninja.

The next rational though that the silver haired jonin had was that he would go and check Naruto and hopefully whatever he was doing included his two teammates.

_Now where does Naruto live?_ Kakashi questioned to himself as he couldn't remember. As more time went on, there was a look of horror on the face of Kakashi that not even his mask could cover up.

Despite the fact that he had told himself that he would get to know the son of Minato-sensei more now that he found out about him, he didn't even know where the boy lived. _What kind of sensei am I? I bet Minato-sensei would be ashamed in me. _Kakashi wasn't even thinking about what he had done or rather hat he hadn't done for Naruto. He was thinking solely about his abilities as a teacher to look after and nurture kids into responsible people as well as train them into powerful shinobi.

He had done nothing of the sort and now it was coming back to bite him in the arse. Kakashi was a great ninja and yet he was so lacklustre as a person that he somehow managed to not know where any of his students were and didn't even know where one of them lived.

It was then as if there was an imaginary light bulb went off in the head of Kakashi. Racing back over the wall that separated the Uchiha clan from the rest of Konoha, Kakashi headed straight for the mission hall.

Immediately, when he got in the room, he was greeted by Izumo and Kotetsu. "Hey there Kakashi-sempai, you're back from your mission awfully early." Kakashi didn't like hearing this one bit. He came back from an assassination mission to the land of waves. He got his mission directly from the Hokage and there was no way that these two chunins would know anything about that.

"What mission?" Kakashi said in a tone he hadn't used in a while. It was the same tone of voice he used when he was a captain in the ANBU. He didn't have time to play games.

Nervous when they heard this, Kotetsu continued on from where Izumo had left off. "Yeah, umm your students came in yesterday saying that you were out doing something important but you wanted them to collect the mission for the day. They told us that you told them to go and get it."

The eyes of Kakashi hardened into a glare although it wasn't pointed at the two chunin. Kakashi was absolutely furious at his genin that they had the gall to do something like this. Did they not realise the danger that they could potentially find themselves in.

"I didn't tell them to do anything like that." As soon as Kakashi said this, it allowed Kotetsu and Izumo to realise exactly why they could feel killing intent coming from the silver haired jonin.

"Get me the copy of the mission that you gave to my students." Kakashi commanded with authority. It was the first time in a couple of years that he had ever had to speak like this and the two chunin were scared.

Quickly dropping their previous task the two chunin hurriedly searched for the copy. The second that they found it, they gave it to Kakashi who didn't even bother to say thank you as he was already out of the building and sprinting at top speed towards the exit of Konoha.

In the short space of time that it took for Kakashi to get from the mission hall to the front gate of Konoha, he had already memorized every single little detail about the mission that his students had took upon themselves to complete. In addition to this, Kakashi completely ignored the protests of the gate guard when they wanted to see his identification. They chased after him for a while but they quickly realised that they were far out of whoever it was' league. After 10 seconds of chasing, Kakashi had already managed to get out of eye sight.

The two chunin guarding the gates knew that even if they did manage to catch up to whoever it was that left in such a hurry, then he must be fast enough to easily kill them.

The five hours that it took for Azula, Sasuke and Naruto to traverse the land of fire until they got to the designated location only took Kakashi 1. He was out of breath and sweating like crazy but this did not stop the silver haired jonin even for a second.

It was better to be there early and put up a fight then not be there and arrive to find his student's corpses.

Now that he was close enough, Kakashi used his basic sensory skills and managed to pick out the beacon which was Kyubi sealed inside of Azula. As he honed in on it, he hoped that his luck with people that he cared about rung true.

After 10 minutes of traversing through open fields and jumping over the fence of someone else's property, Kakashi made it into a forest where he could make out a small cave. His senses were telling him this was where Azula was and now that he was close enough, he could also sense Sasuke easily.

The concern was why couldn't he sense Naruto? For them to be this far out and not together meant something serious had to have happened.

Throwing that to the back of his mind, Kakashi rushed towards the cave. The first sight that he was greeted with was Sasuke who admittedly, was barely able to function with how long he had been awake. Judging from his face, it looked as if he had been awake for 24 hours and was really struggling.

The second that Sasuke noticed the approaching Kakashi, he smiled for the first time in a long time. Boy was Sasuke glad to see Kakashi. He knew that whatever happened, they would be all right. Sasuke promptly fell down onto the ground. He had already fallen asleep before his head hit the ground.

Cursing at the fact that Sasuke had fallen asleep before he could chew him out and also find out what was happening, Kakashi took it upon himself to go into the cave. As he walked past Sasuke, the first person that he saw was Azula.

Judging from the fact that her budding breast was visible and that there was a clear hole over parts of her chest, he knew that something serious had happened and the Kyubi had to bail the girl out in healing a grevious wound. It also didn't help that she was showing her hip and a little bit of her bum due to her clothes being ripped off from some kind of blast.

He had seen the healing powers of the Kyubi thanks to Kushina-sama; he knew that even the Kyubi couldn't heal all of this in such a short space of time. This didn't even include the fact that there was no form of scabs or scars on her body whatsoever. It made Kakashi curious as to how Naruto healed so quickly.

Thankfully due to the fact that they were all out of it at the moment, it gave Kakashi time to look over at his final student. As he knelt down to Naruto, the jonin-sensei realised why he couldn't sense him before. Naruto was suffering from the worst case of chakra exhaustion that he had ever seen.

He was kneeling right next to Naruto and yet he could only just feel he boy's chakra signature. This also served to make Naruto's skin lack all form of colour. Given that chakra was the life force of the human body, it meant that his immune system was down at the moment and he was susceptible to a whole host of things.

Another detail that Kakashi noticed was the fact that from Naruto's forearms down, he was wearing red bandages.

"I guess I might as well get Azula dressed before she wakes up and panics at the fact that her private parts are visible." Kakashi muttered to himself.

It was times like these in which Kakashi was very much grateful he had interacted with Azula when she was a lot younger so that trusted him implicitly.

If they had only known each other from since she became a genin, the jonin knew that the blonde haired girl would not be confident in this whatsoever.

Pulling out a full set of clothes from Azula's backpack, Kakashi got to work on disrobing the girl and putting on some clothes that didn't leave the revealing parts on show.

15 minutes after Kakashi had successfully changed the girl's clothes, said girl started to stir. "Ugh…" Naruko mumbled as she tried to take in her surroundings, wondering where she was. The last thing she remembered happening was taking a kunai in the chest for Naruto.

"Naruto! Sasuke!" Naruko called out in alarm as she sprung up from her position lying down to an up righted seating position. Turning her head around, the first thing that the girl noticed was… "Kakashi-sensei? Uh what are you doing here?" Naruko questioned both relieved and nervous.

"That's something that I would very much like for you to answer for me Azula." As she heard the way that Kakashi spoke to her, the girl knew she was in trouble, deep trouble.

"Sasuke and Naruto wanted to go do another mission because they felt like that they wouldn't ever get a chance to prove that they were ready for a higher grade mission. I mean I felt the same way too but didn't want to do anything without your permission Kakashi-sensei."

The sad thing about this was that after his mission to the land of wave, Kakashi was going to offer taking his team on a c-ranked mission. He didn't like hearing that his students thought that they would never get a chance was disheartening to say the least.

"And yet you still went on the mission Azula." Kakashi said, still with a harsh tone in his voice.

"I remember someone special to me saying that those who break the rules are trash but those who betray their comrades are worse than trash." Azula said with a forced grin on her face, hoping that this would ease the anger in her pseudo big brother.

It did because she saw the eye of Kakashi lighten up. "I'm proud of you for that Azula but I need you to tell me absolutely everything that has happened on this mission." Kakashi stated to the girl, still using an uncompromising tone of voice.

"The mission was to go and take care of a bunch of wolves that were eating some guy's farm. I choked up when it came time to do the deed but thankfully Sasuke bailed me out."

"That's all well and good and it sounds like that you completed the mission but it doesn't tell me how Naruto and you got so hurt."

This was news to Azula as she didn't know that something was wrong with Naruto. As she turned her head, she spotted Naruto who was looking extremely pale at the moment.

Concerned as she was for his health, she knew that she had to tell Kakashi-niisan what had happened. "Yeah, we completed the mission fine but then as soon as that happened, a ninja came out of the ground and tried to stab Sasuke. Sasuke dodged it and then it turned out that there were three missing nins standing next to us.

They said that they hated Konoha ninjas and that they wanted to kill us. I got angry at this and used a jutsu and then they jumped into the forest." Azula stated to which Kakashi had multiple thoughts on the situation.

On the one hand they could run away from here but the missing ninjas would catch up to them. The other choice was to take the fight head on and hope for the best. It was either fight now or fight later when they were tired from running.

"We chose to surprise them by going towards them." As soon as Azula said this, Kakashi didn't like it at all. They were walking into a trap. They should have stayed where they were and waited for the enemy to come them.

"Naruto took it upon himself to go first and be the distraction thanks to that thing he can do where he goes underground." Kakashi nodded when he heard this. Out of everyone on Team Seven, Naruto was the best when it came to stealth.

"Naruto managed to get a good hit on one of them causing a distraction. Me and Sasuke were about to go in and do a combo jutsu but the enemy came charging at us so we didn't have time." Just by looking at the girl, Kakashi could see she was angry at this.

"Sasuke managed to deal with the guy who charged at him but the one who came after me managed to plant an explosive seal on my side. It really hurt like a bitch when that went off!"

_Yeah, even with having the Kyubi, having a whole in your chest and also having an explosive tag going off right next to her, Azula_ _should be a lot worse than what she is right now._

"Sasuke knocked his guy down to the ground but got hit almost as hard as me and he was disorientated from the blast. The guy who Sasuke knocked down was about to get up and hit Sasuke but Naruto came out of the ground and sliced the man's throat."

Kakashi didn't know what Naruto was capable of but hearing this made him correct in his assumptions that Naruto was just as good, if not as good as Sasuke.

I was on the ground but I remember seeing Naruto go through some hand seals and his hands started glowing green. He was walking to me but I can't remember what he was going to do Kakashi-niisan."

"That's alright Azula-chan." Kakashi instantly dismissed her worry as his mind was going a mile a minute. To think that Naruto knew medical ninjutsu was insane at such a young age. Just from hearing that Kakashi was confident that Naruto was at least as good as Sasuke and probably even better than him.

"I saw some kind of fireball come out of the corner of my eye and Sasuke quickly jumped in front and made his own one which burned the guy alive. As Naruto bent down to do something to me, I saw that the guy who planted the tag on me do something to a kunai and throw it directly at Naruto. It turned white or something and since Naruto couldn't see it, despite the pain I was in, I got up and pushed him out of the way.

The only other thing I remember was it hitting me in the chest. Everything else after that is blank sorry Kakashi-sensei."

"It's alright Azula-chan." Kakashi replied. The silver haired jonin had a fair idea of what had happened. Naruto had used all of his chakra healing the injuries of Azula at the cost of his chakra reserves. It would also explain the bandages that were on his hands.

Speaking of which, Kakashi knew that they needed to be changed to prevent the stale environment attracting parasites and diseases. Pulling out a first aid kit scroll from his jonin vest, Kakashi opened it up and prepared to fix Naruto's hands.

As he pulled the bandages off, Kakashi was shocked to see just how much damage had been done. Naruto pretty much had no skin whatsoever on his hands. Having experienced the Kyubi personally when it came to two of his students' mother, Kakashi knew that Naruto must have been healing Naruko for a long time with his hands submerged in the demon's chakra.

Thankfully for Kakashi, Azula wasn't looking over at Naruto. He didn't know what she would be like if she found out that Naruto had been damaged so badly thanks to the demon inside of her.

Doing the best he could, Kakashi wrapped up the wound once more in fresh tape and immediately, they started turning red. It just went to show how much skin had been taken off of Naruto as blood started to seep through onto the bandages.

"So Kakashi-niisan, when are we going to be going back to Konoha?" Azula questioned to her sensei and pseudo big brother.

"Once Sasuke wakes up again, we will start going back to Konoha. Naruto is in no condition to move right now and will require the upmost of care when we start going back."

When she heard Kakashi talk like this, Azula was extremely concerned. She didn't know what was wrong with Naruto but whatever it was, it sounded pretty damn bad. "How bad is it Kakashi-niisan?" Naruko questioned with a concerned look on her face.

Thanks to the only medical jutsu he knew being a diagnosis one, Kakashi was able to tell how bad Naruto was. "He is in a coma right now." When he saw the look of confusion on the face of Azula, he sighed as he knew explaining this would be tough.

"Naruto is in a state of sleep where he can't be woken up. There have been cases where people stay in comas for months, even years."

"No! That can't happen. Not to my team! Not to my friends…" Naruko shouted before she whispered the last part under her breath. As she said this, Azula came over to Naruto and held onto his shoulder. She really wanted him to get through this.

Surprised at the amount of affection that Azula was showing to Naruto despite the fact that the boy had been so cold to her, Kakashi hoped that Team Seven could finally become a proper team. Maybe they would even come to see each other as brother and sister.

"The good thing is that with severe cases of chakra exhaustion is that it causes instant death when chakra reserves get so low. Since Naruto hasn't died yet, it means that he won't die from this. When we get back to Konoha and take Naruto to the hospital, there are doctors who there who will be able to wake him safely from his coma." Kakashi said in an attempt to reassure the girl beside him. As he said this, he gave his patented eye smile.

Judging by the relieved smile that was on her face, he had just done that.

**x-X-x**

Five hours later in the cave and Sasuke started to stir. The memories of the previous day quickly filtered through his mind and Sasuke sprung up hoping that everything was alright.

It was then that when he saw Kakashi he remembered that the man had arrived just before he passed out.

"I know we shouldn't have done it, that we should have waited for your approval but we were confident that we could complete the mission and show you that we were ready for something more challenging." Sasuke said surprising Kakashi as this was the most that he had ever heard the boy say at once.

"I don't think you realise just how serious this is Sasuke. This will be going on all three of your records."

Sasuke didn't dispute this. He knew that there was no point because he had nothing to stand on in regards to defending himself and the team. "You shouldn't be punishing Naruto and Azula. Doing this mission was my idea as I was frustrated with the lack of opportunities we have had to showcase our skills."

Sasuke knew that as team leader, the responsibility of the results of the mission fell on his shoulders. There was also the hope that if he appealed to Kakashi's apparent love for team work and bonding, that maybe, just maybe, Kakashi would be a little bit more lenient.

The jonin saw through this though. "It's nice of you to try and take the blame all yourself but I have heard the story from Azula already." Kakashi replied and he noticed that there was shock on the face of Sasuke.

This wasn't because of the fact that Kakashi had seen through his attempt. It was because apparently, according to Kakashi, Azula was conscious enough to tell him what had happened. Giving the injuries that he had seen the girl suffer from first hand, Sasuke was beyond surprised that she was alive let alone conscious.

"Is she okay?" Admittedly, Kakashi was surprised when he heard Sasuke say this. He saw that it was genuine and he was happy that the quiet child Sasuke was showing emotion when it came to his teammates. Maybe, just maybe, he would be a bit more lenient with his team.

"She's fine. Naruto really did a good job in healing her. I'm very surprised that he is capable of medical ninjutsu." Kakashi said with an odd look on his face.

The second that Sasuke got the message that Azula was fine, Sasuke went back to his old self. "He's full of surprises."

"Indeed he is. Now, let's get going. Naruto needs to get to the hospital to make sure that nothing is wrong with him." Sasuke merely nodded. If Kakashi hadn't already taken Naruto to the hospital then he was confident that Naruto was going to be fine.

"Okay." Sasuke said and as he got up, he picked up his backpack and got out an apple. As he did this, Kakashi picked up Naruto, carefully picked up Naruto and placed him on his back.

**x-X-x**

They got a few odd looks as the three conscious ninja made their way through the entrance of Konoha. Seeing this, Kakashi instantly changed to moving along the rooftops.

As he got to the hospital, Kakashi immediately motioned for the head doctor. Luckily he was free at the time and since he owed Kakashi a favour, he was more than happy to help Naruto out of his coma.

After Kakashi lay Naruto down on a hospital bed, Mr Yakushi started the process of carefully waking Naruto out of his coma. It took five minutes but once it was done, Naruto slowly started groaning.

"Well my work here is done. Naruto will be fine to leave but just make sure that he doesn't do any form of shinobi work for a few days until he can rebuild his strength."

Both Kakashi and Sasuke nodded when they heard this. They were going to make sure that Naruto did exactly that.

"Thanks" Kakashi said to the man as he left the room.

As for Naruto who was slowly waking up, he noticed that he was staring at the white ceiling of a hospital. Realising that this was different from the scenario he last remembered, Naruto muttered out "Where am I?"

The second that he said this, Naruto was surprised when he felt someone latch onto his chest. As he moved his head slightly, Naruto was surprised to see a curtain of blonde hair on top of him.

"I'm so happy that you're alright! I was really worried about you," Azula said with a watery look in her eyes.

Naruto was shocked at this; he didn't think she would be like this. Azula was being affectionate to him even after all the shit that he had given her throughout the years.

It was then that he remembered that Azula had jumped in the way of a kunai that was about to kill him because of his carelessness._ She's utterly genuine about this. She's not just doing this for her reputation because if she was, she wouldn't be willing to risk her life for just me._

"I'm sorry for being a dick to you for all these years Azula -san."

The second that she heard Naruto say this, those watery eyes let loose and actual tears started to fall. She valiantly tried to wipe them away but Naruto and the rest of the team saw them.

"It's okay, as long as we can be friends from now on?" Azula questioned Naruto. As soon as she saw the nod, she jumped onto the gurney and gave him a hug.

Naruto for his part blushed as this was the first ever time that he had been touched by a girl. He had absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. In the end he decided to not do anything and hope for the best.

As Kakashi watched this unfold right before his very eyes, he was beyond happy with the way that his team was coming together. _Yep, I'll let this one slide for now. It will harm the team far more than it will help them if they have a severe punishment._

It was then that there was a knock on the door. Waiting for Kakashi on the other side of the door was a chunin with a message. "Kakashi-sama, Hokage-sama is requesting your presence in his office immediately."

Getting up from her position on Naruto, Naruko spoke up. "I wonder what the Hokage wanted to speak to Kakashi-niisan about."

It was Sasuke who replied. "He's going to cop shit for what we did."

"What!? But we were the ones who left without him even knowing! We should be the ones getting in trouble not him!" Azula called out rather loudly.

Sasuke was finally coming to the realisation of just how bad their decision looked to others. "It doesn't matter. He is our commanding officer and whatever ever we do, either good or bad, he is responsible for."

"Oh… I hope they go easy on him then." Azula said with a frown on her face.

**x-X-x**

"I heard about the little incident that you had with your students Kakashi." Hiruzen said with a look of detest on his face.

"That's really interesting." Kakashi replied not for a second did he raise his attention from the book in his hand.

Heavily annoyed at the lack of respect that Kakashi was showing him, Hiruzen ordered the man to put the book away. Before the Sandaime Hokage said anything though, Kakashi surprised the man by speaking up first.

"If you do anything, I will publically announce that I didn't think my team was ready to compete in the upcoming chunin exams."

Hiruzen's look narrowed into a thin gaze. He knew how much this would effect Konoha and their reputation. When it got out that the Hokage was forcing students that a jonin didn't think were capable of entering the exams, Konoha would lose part of their good image. This was especially telling when it came from someone as respected Kakashi Hatake.

With that said, Kakashi simply shunshined out of the room. He was still incredibly pissed off at the Hokage considering his treatment of Minato and more importantly Naruto that he just didn't care if he was strong arming his dictator.

**x-X-x**

"…Danzo-sama, the teammate of the Uchiha and the jinchuuriki survived the mission he was in."

Despite the fact that he was a master at hiding what he thought from ever seeing the light of day on his face, not even Danzo could prevent a look of anger from appearing on his mug.

"It seems like I underestimated them… Very well, get in contact with Orochimaru. I have a secondary mission for him to do when he returns." Danzo said before returning to the shadows.


	9. Caught in the undertow

As far as Kakashi concerned, with Naruto taking a whole week to recover and the chunin exams being in one week from now, Kakashi decided that there was no real point taking his team on a mission. There wouldn't be anything learnt going on a mission that was just like the last one only without the missing ninjas.

Instead Kakashi chose to make sure that his team were at absolute peak performance before they entered the exam. Kakashi was confident that there would be at least two promotions to the rank of chunin and he was hopeful of a third.

If he wanted that to happen then he had to have his students at a high quality and Kakashi did just that. Although they would have preferred to start focusing on their individual skills, Kakashi had told them that a week wasn't enough to get any serious development. It was best that they stayed at peak performance health.

**x-X-x**

As they walked through the front doors of a place where they never thought that they would enter again, Team Seven instantly saw the genjutsu which the two gate guards had placed over the place.

He didn't care if the genin around him couldn't see what was going on; Sasuke simply wanted to get through this farce and get onto the proper exam. "Let me through." Sasuke commanded as he had walked through the crowd and stared at the two chunin.

Said two chunin stared at one another. With a knowing look they turned back and faced Sasuke. "Yeah… let's not and say we did hahaha."

The ire of Sasuke was drawn when he heard this. In a split second his three tomoe Sharingan was activated and spinning. Both of the two chunin stared into the eyes of Sasuke and instantly fell victim to whatever genjutsu the lone Uchiha had concocted up.

Two seconds later and both of the chunin fell down to the ground clutching their heads. All of the genin including Rock Lee who was previously considering fighting the Uchiha now had second thoughts. They saw the power of the Sharingan and did not want to mess with it.

Sasuke by this time had already deactivated his Sharingan and stepped over the two unresponsive bodies. Naruto had joined up with him immediately. Azula meanwhile made sure to check if the bodies of the two chunin were alright before joining up with her team.

She had to admit it did look really cool watching Sasuke show his skill in genjutsu like that.

As Team Seven walked into the room, Azula's confidence took a small hit when she realised just how many people were actually attempting to this exam. One look in the direction of Naruto and Sasuke was enough to reassure the young girl because she had complete confidence in their abilities.

It was then that the trio of ninjas found themselves next to people that they hadn't seen since the academy. "Sasuke-kun, I haven't seen you in ages!" Ino called out as she literally jumped at the chance to be closer with the love of her life.

What Ino Yamanaka did not expect at all though was for Sasuke to immediately use the substitution jutsu.

She didn't expect who she jumped on but she wasn't exactly complaining as there were far worse people she could be pressing her breasts into. "So how is it going bestie?" Ino commented with the upmost of confidence as she rubbed her cheek up against Azula -chan's.

"Ino-chan, stop it, you're embarrassing me." Despite what she had said, there was a smile on Azula's face.

"Come on, you know you love me." Ino confidently said with a big smile on her face.

Azula sighed. She knew if she said what she thought that it would make the ego of the blonde haired girl inflate to even larger proportions. "I s'pose you're alright." Azula said as she bumped the Yamanaka girl off of her back. Turning around quickly, she engaged in a hug which caught Ino off guard for a second but she quickly returned it.

"We did a lot of training! We won't lose to you guys!" A new voice said as he entered the conversation. Said voice belonged to none other than Kiba Inuzuka.

"You seem confident." Naruto said stating the obvious. The way how he said it though reeked of condescension.

"Pfft shut up dead last! You're just lucky you're getting carried by Azula-chan and Sasuke." Kiba immediately replied, a little jealous at the fact that Naruto, the worst shinobi of their graduating class managed to get on the team with the best and second best.

Azula was going to defend her teammate and say how he was even better than herself but then she felt someone grab a hold of her wrist. Turning around, she saw Naruto shake his head.

"It's no point, let him what he wants to think, he'll just be more surprised when he sees the real me."

"Hah, I bet you're just scared." Kiba boasted with a confident smirk on his face.

Having had enough, Sasuke stood up for his friend. He honestly didn't see why Naruto was doing what he was doing. It wasn't as if it would do anything. "Keep thinking that." Sasuke said.

The fact that Uchiha even bothered to speak up was enough to quieten the Inuzuka. It was then that there was yet another person who entered themselves in the conversation. This time around nobody knew who it was judging by the looks on the faces and Shikamaru, Shino, Naruto and Sasuke all got on alert. They wondered why this person was so interested in joining their group when he was more than a few years older than them.

It sounded incredibly fishy when he offered to give away his hard earned information about all of the competitors to the Konoha nine all for free. This was an action that definitely sent alarm bells in the previously aforementioned genins' minds.

For Kiba, seeing that the man had a Konoha headband on his forehead, he didn't see anything wrong this Kabuto fellow and happily took advantage of the services that he was offering. "I want you to give me the information on Naruto Uzumaki!" Kiba proudly announced.

Everyone in the group had a frown on their face. Whilst it was fair for Kiba to ask such a question, everyone their including even Kabuto thought it was a dick move.

Said silver haired man wasn't one to deny a child's request so he promptly gave out all of the information he had on Naruto Uzumaki. "Naruto-kun has completed 16 D-ranked missions and no C-ranked missions."

Before Kabuto could continue from where he left off, Kiba interrupted him. "Haa! I knew it! We've completed two C-ranked missions. I bet your sensei doesn't think you're good enough to go on a C-ranked mission.

Naruto who still had his hand around the forearm of Azula instantly tightened it when he heard this. He knew she was just waiting to pounce and smack that smug smirk off of Kiba's face.

"His sensei is Kakashi Hatake so it's easy to assume that he has above average ninjutsu capabilities."

It was then that the special pieces of paper which had the information on the skillset of Naruto Uzumaki got swallowed up into the ground beneath them. "That's enough" Naruto said with force as he was thankful that the building he was standing in was made by a very proficient Doton user. "These are mine now. You're more than welcome to attempt to take them from me." Naruto stated with a strong look on his face, daring anyone to take the bait.

Sasuke noticed the slightest of changes in the facial expression of Kabuto to know that there was more to those ninja info cards than what Kabuto had initially told them about.

Judging by the spike in chakra coming from the man when he got angry, Sasuke and his basic sensory abilities could tell that this Kabuto person was no mere genin. From what he could tell, the man had chakra levels far higher than the average chunin had.

He was right to think that there was something fishy about the silver haired man. _No ninja would take the genin exam for an eighth time. They would either pass earlier or give up after realising that it was fruitless for them to try again._

Before anything else could happen, there were three ninja from the village hidden in the sound that overheard the new topic that Kabuto had started up. Said three individuals happened to be extremely offended by the fact that Kabuto had denounced any chances that they had of completing the exam and decided to make a statement with Kabuto being that statement.

Five of the genin that made up the Konoha nine noticed how the hit never even got close and yet Kabuto almost started spewing his guts up. It was then explained to the others that there was some kind of sound that effected Kabuto's ears really badly.

Before anything else could happen, Naruto noticed a new face in the room. Said face belonged to one of the most feared shinobi that Konoha had to offer. That man was none other than Ibiki Morino.

"Stop it immediately! If you do anything stupid like that again I will immediately disqualify you and your team from the exams before they even start." Ibiki commanded to the room full of chunin hopeful ninjas.

The second that this was said to all of the ninjas, they got into position in their seats and hoped that they wouldn't do anything that would get them in trouble.

When they found out that they would be doing a written exam, many of the students including Kiba groaned at this.

Naruto wasn't one of them however. Considering all the time he put into faking his grades, he now finally had a chance to showcase just how smart he was. He finally had the chance to show people parts of who the real Naruto was.

Sasuke grinned at this. Whilst he was confident in the fact that he could answer most of the questions, Sasuke knew that Azula was smart enough to at least get one of the ten right so that they could pass.

Meanwhile as all of this was happening, Kabuto Yakushi was absolutely furious with himself for his lack of concentration. Allowing Naruto to gain control over his ninja info cards was a massive mistake.

Whilst he had said that his ninja info cards were only able to be accessed by himself, it was that far of a stretch of the imagination for Kabuto to think that in the right hands, they could be decoded.

Now normally, the silver haired man who was a genin in disguise would have not cared one bit if it was only the information on participating genin that was stored on those cards.

It wasn't though.

All of the plans that Kabuto had on the proposed branding of Sasuke Uchiha with the cursed seal and the following invasion of Konoha was on all of those cards.

That information could not fall into the wrong hands at all as it would be disastrous for the long terms plans of Orochimaru and subsequently Kabuto.

Now normally he would have simply taken them back with the accidental death of Naruto Uzumaki happening in the process. Unfortunately for him with so many people around, Kabuto would not have a chance to do so and keep his position as a traitor to Konohagakure in tact.

Thankfully for him there was the second round coming up very shortly in which he could make an accident happen and retrieve his cards back before anything bad happened.

Speaking of said second exam, it was at this time that Anko Mitarashi careened through the window, smashing it into tiny pieces as she held up a sign.

**x-X-x**

With their plan for navigating the forest all sorted out, Team Seven made their way through the opening gates and didn't waste a second in heading out. The trio of ninjas had decided that they weren't in a rush at all to make it to the middle of the forest which housed the tower.

Although they hadn't been on any official missions that were either C-rank or higher, the three ninjas were confident in that they could overcome anything that was thrown at them. They had fought against chunin level ninjas and had come out on top so going up against genin didn't scare them one bit.

Five minutes into the five day trip and Naruto stated to the two that he needed to go to the toilet. Naruto was happy that he wasn't on a team with either Ino or Kiba as they would not shut up about him needing to go to the toilet.

Being the gentleman that he was, Naruto jumped a few trees over so that neither Sasuke nor Azula had to hear or even worse see him going to the toilet. When he got to a spot where he felt that it was appropriate, Naruto found a small puddle.

Pulling down his the elastic in his pants, Naruto did the deed and started emptying the contents of penis onto the puddle slightly in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto spotted someone attempting to attack his from a blind spot.

In comparison to the previous ninjas he had fought, it was a step down and Naruto was able to dodge the incoming attack. Instead of doing a jutsu in retaliation, Naruto did the most important thing he could think of; he put his willy back in his pants.

Now that his future children were tucked away safe, Naruto then started going through hand seals. Before he could finish them though, Naruto was again attacked by yet another ninja from the land of rain. The blonde haired boy evaded the high leg kick as he jumped back at a fast rate to the first ninja who had attacked him.

Had it not been for the fact that there wasn't as much of an abundance of water as compared to the ground in which his Doton jutsus were based on, Naruto had to go through the motion of hand seals with both hands.

"Suiton: Mizurappa no jutsu! (Water Release: Water Trumpet Jutsu!)" Naruto called out gathering the water from the puddle nearby. He was very glad that Sasuke's family had copied this jutsu in a skirmish against the royal family of Iwagakure. It was an incredibly good jutsu for his skill level as far as Naruto was concerned.

By the time that everything was all set in motion, Naruto had managed to get inside the guard of the first Amegakure ninja who attacked him and released the jutsu at point blank range.

The force that collided with the man was enough to send him flying back and smash through one tree and into another. From the way his back hit the bark and his neck fell down, it was safe to say that the man was in a bad state.

Seeing his friend take such damage made the second Amegakure ninja rage. If there was one thing that he didn't like seeing, it was the sight of his comrades in pain. He took it personal as he wasn't strong enough to protect his friends.

He charged.

Seeing the man charge at him, Naruto grinned. This man simply wasn't as fast as him and that meant a whole host of things in the shinobi world. As the shinobi was charging at him again, Naruto started going through yet another set of hand seals.

Instead of something happening in the surrounding nature like before, Naruto's hands were coated in a bluish green colour of chakra. For what was a surprise for the Amegakure genin, Naruto started charging at him also.

Whilst he saw the chakra coming off of Naruto's hands, the man was completely confident in his abilities to beat the kid in front of him.

He did not expect for Naruto to dodge his attack and run both of his hands on both his quadriceps and hamstring muscles in his right leg respectively. He didn't know how just running your hands over someone's clothes could do damage but the second that Naruto took his hands off, the man screamed out in pain as he fell to the ground.

Since Naruto didn't have as great a control over the chakra scalpel technique as he would have liked, it meant that he wasn't as capable of causing damage to precise areas on the body like veins and arteries.

Instead, Naruto had to resort to using the jutsu on the larger muscle groups and severing their connection to the bone. Whilst this wasn't fatal, it caused a severe amount of pain and the ninja cried out in pain yet again when he tied to put the slightest amount of wait on his leg.

Naruto deactivated the jutsu because he knew that this fight was over. Unless this enemy in front of him was a ridiculously skilled medical ninja, the injury he suffered was so severe that he could not move his right leg at all.

That was fine when he dodged the first attack of Naruto which was a straight forward punch. His choice in dodging was to jump away from the scene of the crime and throw a kunai. Unfortunately for him he was so used to putting all of his weight on his right leg as it was his dominant one that he did the action once more .

Considering the injury he suffered from, he fell down to the ground immediately in a crouching position with his head over the bung leg.

As he continued to apply the pressure, Naruto picked out a kunai from his pocket and jammed it hard into the base of the Amegakure ninjas neck. His spinal cord was severed and the kunai went so far down that it even pierced through the man's Adams apple.

He was dead on impact.

During this, Naruto steeled his resolve. Whilst he knew that killing was something that ninjas had to do, he didn't have something like what happened to Sasuke where he had no problems killing someone.

With having done this one though, it was slightly easier compared to the one he did on his previous mission. Naruto knew that over time and as the number grew higher it would be become slightly easier.

Activating the scalpels once more, Naruto walked over to the ninja who he had incapacitated earlier and lifted up his head. There was a bead of sweat which went down the side of the face of Naruto as he concentrated intently on what he was about to do next.

Naruto ran his right hand over the jugular vein of his enemy. Judging from the inflammation of the skin and the immediate redness that came up, Naruto knew that he had done his job properly.

It was at this point in time that Naruto realised he had forgotten about his team. Naruto quickly dashed back from where he once came to see what was going on with Azula and Sasuke.

When he got there, he found that there was a ninja from low and behold Amegakure lying face down on the ground.

In comparison to the previous kill he had just came from, this one was rather brutal. To put it into perspective, the guy's left arm had been cut off completely by what looked like a really bad blade. Naruto guessed that this was from a rather powerful futon jutsu and the only person who could perform that was Azula although she didn't have complete control over her element.

Sasuke meanwhile was standing around awkwardly. He had no idea what to say in this situation as Azula was in a weird state as far as he was concerned.

Naruto sighed, he knew that he wouldn't be much better at what he planned to do next than Sasuke but Naruto knew that it had to be done.

"Hey Sasuke, can you go and check the bodies over there for their scroll. I forgot to check them when I came back from going to the toilet." Sasuke nodded immediately as he recognized what his best friend was planning on doing.

Naruto walked over to Azula who was sitting down at a tree staring at her hands. He broke that stare by grabbing a hold of one of the girl's hands. "You know that no one likes doing it but we all have to at one point." Naruto said as he looked down at the hand he was holding.

"B-but what if I don't want to do it ever!?" Azula called out as she had tears in her eyes.

"Because if you don't do it, then you will force someone else to do it more often to cover for you. I know that it doesn't make things any better but just think of why you do it. What is the reasoning that's stopping you from becoming a senseless killer?"

Those words resonated within the girl. She turned her head and stared directly at her brother even though she didn't know it. "What's your reason Naruto?" Azula questioned to which Naruto looked away.

"I don't know honestly and that's what scares me." The Uzumaki said as he stared at the ground below.

It was then that Azula had an epiphany. "I know! Let's do it for each other and Sasuke! To make sure that were not alone and we're all going through this together as a team!" Azula said with a big grin on her face.

It seemed as if her spirits did a complete one eighty as she got up off from her previous position with a determined look on her face. "We're too good for something like that to be getting us down. We won't be senseless killers, We will be ninjas who go above and beyond their duty to protect and look after what they care about!"

Naruto stared up at the girl in awe. He had never been in a situation where things were going good and then they went bad. All his life it had been about working up from the bottom. The thing that impressed Naruto the most was how quickly the girl who he called his teammate managed to bounce back up so fast from adversity.

"They had another heaven scroll." Sasuke casually said as he walked back into the clearing that they were situated in.

"Alright then! Let's get going, we have to find another team with a scroll." Azula said as she took command of the team. Both of the boys nodded when they heard this and got back down to business.

Two minutes later as they headed into the forest, Team Seven were hit by a massive gust of wind that intercepted their path. Unfortunately for Azula, she was in the middle of the air so she had no way of running chakra through to the ground to stabilize herself.

This left Naruto and Sasuke to stare down at a Kusagakure ninja "You want my earth scroll right?" The newcomer said as she held out the scroll.

Naruto and Sasuke were more than smart enough to not go straight the scroll which was in full view. When someone did this, they were either so far above your perceived skill level or they had a trap set for you.

This in combination with the fact that Azula wasn't around meant that Sasuke and ,Naruto had to play it safe. There was that, and there was also the fact that the two boys both felt uneasy given the vibes that were coming off of their opponent.

As a test, the ninja from Kusagakure launched multiple shuriken in the direction of Naruto. The second they left his hand, the ninja unleashed a massive amount of killing intent right in the direction of both of the boys.

He could see from the way their bodies locked up that the killing intent effected them but much to his surprise, both Naruto and Sasuke managed to almost instantly shake off the killing intent and Naruto jumped out of the way landing on a nearby tree.

"Yes, I can see why Danzo is so interested in you." The disguised Orochimaru said. If he wasn't so interested in the Sharingan of Sasuke Uchiha, he might have considered implanting the cursed seal on Naruto himself. The kid was very talented for his age considering the fact that none of the ninjas in his village barring Kimimaro would have put up as a good a fight against killing intent as what Naruto had just done.

It was then that there was a snake which appeared out of nowhere and launched itself at the Uchiha amongst them. Sasuke barely saw it but successfully managed to get out of the way of the attack.

As he flew through the air, Sasuke threw multiple kunai and shuriken at the snake. Immediately, as the metal connected with the snake it started falling down to the ground and collided with a loud thump.

What surprised the two genin was the fact that the Kusagakure ninja came out of the snake. There was the thought that this was a snake that lived in the forest but that thought was now gone far from their minds.

"You shouldn't relax for even a second. When you face a predator, you should always try your best to run away." The second that Orochimaru finished saying this, he channelled chakra into his snake like body and sped through the forest.

Sasuke activated his three tomoe Sharingan the millisecond he saw movement from his enemy. Having all three tomoes activated thanks to intense training rom Naruto definitely helped a great deal.

The raven haired Uchiha barely managed to dodge the attack that had been sent his way.

Originally, Orochimaru had planned to continue the offensive attack but before he could do that, Naruto Uzumaki pushed him on the defensive. "Doton: Doryudan! (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet Jutsu!" Naruto called out as he unleashed one of his more powerful jutsus at the female ninja who by all accounts neither Naruto nor Sasuke think was genin grade.

Orochimaru was surprised that this kid that Danzo had paid for him to kill used one of the jutsus that his former sensei loved so much. It was such a shame that he had only prepared enough serums of the cursed seal that he could apply it only once to Sasuke.

Sasuke himself was not one to be outdone and he unleashed a potent raiton jutsu at Orochimaru with only one hand. "Oooh, one handed ninjutsu, you're just as skilled as your brother Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke froze when he heard this. There was a second where his eyes widened to large proportions.

There was a reason why his brother was a taboo topic. Nobody had said anything about Itachi unless he brought it up and even then the only person who he had talked about that subject to was Naruto.

To hear this man say the murderer of his clan's name so casually, it infuriated Sasuke. The tomoes in his Sharingan started spinning rapidly as the boy's anger was at an all-time high. "Yes, show me that power, show me the strength of the Sharingan little Itachi." Orochimaru said with a sinister grin on his face. What made this scenario even creepier for Sasuke was the way that the man licked his lips whilst staring directly at him.

He felt like a piece of meat in this person's eyes and he did not like that look one bit.

Going through hand seals, Sasuke launched the trademark jutsu of his clan right in the direction of the enemy.

Knowing that he could tank the jutsu head on, Orochimaru decided against it. He wanted to play with these kids a little bit more before he gave Sasuke-kun the seal and killed the Naruto kid.

As this was going through the mind of Orochimaru, the Sannin forgot about the blonde haired boy as when he jumped to the right to dodge the attack, Naruto was waiting right there for him with the same jutsu he had previously used to knock one of the Amegakure ninjas into a tree.

"Azula! Come out now!" Naruto called out in a near panic tone of voice. The second that he said this, not only did Azula appear by his side after having just killed off by a giant snake but Sasuke also joined them from having fallen back down to the ground.

"We have to get out of here as soon and as quick as possible. This man that we're fighting is none other than Orochimaru of the Sannin. No one else can summon snakes to do his bidding and move like a snake himself."

Azula immediately piped up. "I got swallowed by a massive snake but I created heaps of clones so that it blew up. So how are we gonna make our escape? It's not as if we can just run! I mean that's Orochimaru, he will just catch up to us."

Both Sasuke and Naruto took this information in stride as they had even more evidence as to who it was they were up against.

Whilst they would have loved to go up against one of the very best shinobies of a previous generation, they both knew that Orochimaru had nothing to gain from obtaining their scroll. This meant that he was after something else and given his track record, it meant that whatever it was, it wasn't something that they wanted to be a part of.

"I know!" Sasuke hurriedly exclaimed as out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw Orochimaru charging at the three of them. The raven haired Uchiha hurriedly told his plan to his two teammates and they nodded at their respective roles.

When there were a few metres difference between the trio of genin shinobi and the famed Orochimaru, Azula Namikaze used her trademark jutsu and created an abundance of shadow clones. In conjunction with this there was a massive cloud of smoke that could be seen from a kilometre away if you stood on a tall tree.

Knowing that this was some kind of escape tactic, the snake Sannin suddenly went serious as he casted a powerful wind based ninjutsu which quickly dissipated the smoke.

What he was left looking at were about a hundred shadow clones of Azula's.

Now this wasn't something that Orochimaru minded as he could and would easily weed out the real one. The problem however happened to be the fact that there were also hundreds of Naruto's and Sasuke's as far as he could tell.

Furious beyond all belief as he knew what was going to happen, Orochimaru charged head on unleashing all of his killer intent hoping to spot the real trio out of all of the fakes.

Sadly that wasn't to be as there were just too many ninjas that he couldn't tell the difference. By the time he had gotten to the centre of the formation, all of the clones including the real Naruto, Sasuke and Azula had long left the scene of the crime.

"Fuck!" Orochimaru screamed to high heavens as his precious Sharingan had evaded his grasp yet again. Now Orochimaru wasn't normally one to utter even the smallest of curse words but it was safe to say that now was a rather acceptable time for him to do so.

The snake Sannin would have been even more furious with himself had he known that Naruto also had on his personage the plans for the upcoming invasion of Konoha.

**x-X-x**

None of the members of Team Seven were any the wiser to the internal thoughts going on inside the mind of Orochimaru but they didn't care one bit. They still had an exam to complete on top of the fact that they were running away from a S-ranked shinobi who was had plans that they didn't want to be a part of.

As they raced through the forest, Naruto paused for a second as he landed on the ground, with both hands landing first. It only took him two seconds but Naruto had used his sensory skills over the earth element to not only find out that Orochimaru wasn't chasing them but also that they were heading directly for the safe house in the middle.

What made this even better was the fact that there also happened to be a team up ahead. This was something that he instantly let his teammates know about.

Knowing the plan that they had gone over before when they came up against a team, Naruto went in first thanks to his ability to use the hiding like a mole jutsu to the point where he could still sense what was going on above him, Naruto went in first with Sasuke and Azula close behind in hiding spots.

The ninja from the land of wind didn't even see it coming as Naruto popped up out of the ground and with a single slice of hi kunai, Naruto hit a point on the woman's neck where the hit was instantly fatal.

The dull thud of her body hitting the ground was enough to garner the attention of her two male teammates and as they charged at Naruto, Sasuke and Azula took this as their cue.

Sasuke raced along the ground at his fastest speed which was something that none of the genin could follow and right before he got his arms reach of the enemy, he used a jutsu which created a fair amount of noise.

This caused one of the two to turn around and it was all Sasuke needed to use his jutsu "Raiton: Kuchibashi no Piasu Jutsu (Lightning Release: Piercing Beak Jutsu!)" Sasuke called out as his most powerful jutsu connected with the chest of the sunagakure ninja.

Sasuke's hand went straight through the man's ribcage and managed to create a hole in the shinobi's heart. Before Sasuke could pull his hand out of the body, it was already dead.

The suddenness of death was also comparable to the way that Azula had chosen to end the fight. She instead had chosen to throw multiple shuriken straight at the man who was chasing after Naruto. It also helped that she had quickly followed up with using a wind based ninjutsu to enhance the potency and speed in which the shuriken flew at.

Two of them hit the abdomen, three in the leg and one in particular hit the neck right in the jugular vein. Like the strike of Naruto, this was instant death.

Naruto, Sasuke and Azula didn't have time to wait though as they rushed over to the fallen ninjas bodies' and searched for the scroll. "Yatta!" Azula called out with enthusiasm.

There in her hand was a earth scroll!

"Good, now let's go to the tower." Sasuke said leaving no time at all for Orochimaru to figure out what they had done.

Most would think that a genin would go straight for the tower. Orochimaru was different in that he thought Sasuke would lead the team in a different direction because the mainstream choice was to go straight to the tower. Sasuke however had thought that Orochimaru would have guessed this and played a double bluff.

Their team was one of the nine people that went straight for the snake Sannin who was too busy focusing on destroying all of the other clones.

He just wanted to get his team to safety. After time alone after what had happened to his family, Sasuke was finally opening up to people other than Naruto and he didn't want them to suffer the same fate as the people he cared for previously.


	10. Can't you see

In all honesty, Team Seven could not be any happier with their performance during the chunin exams. They quickly defeated a team from Amegakure and then ran into the famed snake Sannin Orochimaru. It was there that the fortitude and courageousness of Team Seven was tested. When faced with adversity, they didn't crumble under the pressure, they fought the battle head on and managed to come out on top given the situation.

They were never going to be able to win a straight out fight so they did the next best thing; Team Seven fought to live for another day.

When word got out that Team Seven managed to evade the attack of Orochimaru and successfully manage to get out of the way, all of the plaudits went to Sasuke and Azula. To say the least Gohan was pissed off when he heard this.

Despite the fact that most of the plaudits should be going to Azula and Sasuke for that specific fight, it was the fact that no matter what the situation, everyone always viewed him as the one who got carried by the prodigious skills of his two teammates.

When he heard that there was going to be an extra preliminary round so that they could reduce the number of competitors for the final exam, Naruto couldn't have been any happier. He finally had a chance when there were quite a few eyes watching to showcase just how good of a shinobi he was.

He was no one's support! He was his own carry!

**x-X-x**

As far as Naruto and Sasuke were concerned, the entire speech of the Sandaime Hokage could be boiled down into one sentence. It would have been much better and saved a lot of time for Hiruzen Sarutobi to simply say that "The better you perform in these exams, the more missions are sent your villages way because of perceived strength."

It would have even been something that Kiba who had to ask for him to expand on this to be able to understand on the first try.

"Hokage-sama, if I may, would you mind if I took over from here on out?" a special jonin said and whilst he asked this question, he was in the process of coughing up his lungs.

The nod he got in conformation was all he needed. "The first match is Akado Yoroi vs. Sasuke Uchiha." The second that he heard his name, Sasuke looked over to the area in which his opponent was.

When Sasuke saw that he was from the same team as Kabuto Yakushi who Sasuke didn't believe was telling the truth for a second, Sasuke knew that he had to be at his absolute best. Kabuto was a jonin as far as he was concerned going by the chakra levels.

He gave a slight smile to Azula when she said she would be cheering him on. The raven haired Uchiha didn't need to look at Naruto to know what his best friend was thinking.

He knew that Naruto had complete confidence in him winning and just knowing that was all that Sasuke needed.

The Uchiha genin honestly didn't care what Sasuke had to say or thought. He wasn't so close with Kakashi; The only people he cared about were Naruto and to a lesser extent Azula.

"Fight!" Gekkou Hayate called out as he jumped out of the way allowing the two chunin hopefuls to showcase their skills.

Sasuke sped off at his fastest speed and that was something that many of the genin could not follow. Even Kurenai who was the newest jonin out of the lot of them had trouble following the speed in Sasuke was moving at. As he was rocketing to his enemy, Sasuke pulled out a kunai from his pocket. He didn't stop there as he channelled raiton chakra and it coated the instrument of death.

By the time that the proctor realised what Sasuke was planning on doing, he sprinted as fast as he could to intercept the attack. He might have allowed this if Sasuke Uchiha was going up against ninja from the hidden sound village but he was not. Sasuke was fighting against a fellow Konoha shinobi.

Sasuke activated his three tomoe Sharingan to make sure that this enemy couldn't move out of the way from his finishing blow. As he closed in on his prey, Sasuke saw out of the corner of his eye, the jonin coming to block his attack.

He wouldn't allow for that to happen.

Sasuke dodged the attempted catch of his hand thanks to his Sharingan and proceeded to stick his lightning chakra infused kunai straight into the heart of the Konoha ninja.

Once the deed was done, Sasuke deactivated his Sharingan. He left the kunai still in the body of Akado Yoroi as it started falling to the ground. Immediately, Sasuke turned around, with hands in pockets and headed up to the stairs.

"Whilst killing is permitted in the exams, it is heavily frowned upon especially killing allies from the same village."

"That's unfortunate for him then." Sasuke said as he didn't even bother turning around to face the proctor of the exam. It was safe to say that Sasuke had just alienated Gekkou Hayate.

Sasuke walked up stairs of the arena whilst a lot of those in attendance were still in shock. Kakashi couldn't believe the speed in which Sasuke could move at. He had no idea that Sasuke was so fast! If he was this fast at such a young age, Kakashi thought that the title of Minato Namikaze being the fastest ever ninja was under a serious amount of jeopardy.

Might Guy was mightily impressed at the fact that Sasuke was as fast as Lee without his weights. The difference was that Sasuke had the chakra to back everything up. He was the real deal and it would not surprise the Elite Jonin if Sasuke made jonin in a couple of years.

Hiruzen as he was watching was also highly impressed with what he saw from the younger brother of Itachi. As long as he stayed loyal to the village, Hiruzen had every thought that the younger brother of Itachi would be an integral part of Konohagakure.

"He was a Konoha ally Sasuke, you should not have done that at all." Kakashi said in a harsh tone of voice. He did not for one second want to allow the thought to develop in the mind of Sasuke that killing Konoha citizens was okay.

The reply he got shocked him his core.

"If that was you down there, I wouldn't have any hesitation killing you to get the rank of chunin." Sasuke replied in a voice that was loud enough for most of the people in attendance to hear. Kiba for his part shuddered at the thought of how fucked up in the head Sasuke was.

It was too bad that he didn't know the saying of walking a mile in someone elses shoes before you judge them.

Next up it was Shino Aburame and Zaku Abumi from some god only knows backwater village in the middle of nowhere.

Sasuke actually didn't mind Shino. He was the one thing that he liked most in a person that he wasn't forced to work with; silence. It was why there was a small turn of the lips on Sasuke's face when he saw how the fight panned out. It wasn't a smile or even a smirk but it was something on the way to one of those facial expressions.

The next few fights were boring in the eyes of all of Team Seven and even Azula had to admit that the fight between her friend Ino and Shikamaru was pretty damn boring.

It was then that they saw the combatants of the next fight. It was the second time that someone from Team Seven was going to go down to the arena and fight. Instead of fighting against a ninja from Konoha, Azula was going to go up against a ninja from that weird village that attacked Kabuto.

"Will Dosu Kinuta and Azula Namikaze please come down to the arena." Gekkou stated to the group of shinobi.

Immediately, when she heard her name, Azula turned around to her teammates and sensei. "Wish me luck guys!" Azula said with a bright smile on her face. Kakashi immediately gave an eye smile, Naruto gave a regular smile and Sasuke merely nodded at the girl.

Whilst none of them opened their mouths, it was more than enough for Azula to know that her team wished that she performed well and gave her their vote of confidence.

With both of the fighters ready, Gekkou saw no reason to prolong the fight any more.

Azula knew that she couldn't let this fight become a close range battle because of the skillset of the enemy and her skillset. Whilst she could fight people close range, she wasn't a close range specialist like Sasuke or Hinata.

The first thing that Azula did was throw multiple kunai in the direction of her enemy. She backed this up with by creating a large gust of wind which propelled the instruments of death that much faster.

Dosu had to jump out of the way as fast as he could once he realised just how potent that combo was. He made a mental note to make sure to watch out for that; It was then that he decided that he was going to use this moment to get in close to do some damage to his opponent.

Unfortunately for him, Azula was able to push him back with yet another powerful wind based ninjutsu.

It was a clash of styles as one was a long ranged fighter against a close ranged fighter. When Azula sent shadow clones to try and deal a blow, they attempts were immediately rendered mute as the melody arm of the opponent instantly destroyed the clones.

When she realised that, Azula decided that she would go back to the style which Ebisu-sensei had tailored specifically for her abilities as a kunoichi. She would simply throw jutsu after jutsu attempting to both outlast her opponent and hope that one of the jutsus she used caused a hit on the enemy.

This was indeed what happened as she threw a yet another set of kunai and one of them managed to slice open a fair sized wound on the right calf muscle of Dosu Kinuta.

The damage was more than just the pain as it hindered the Otogakure ninja's movement when he tried to dodge the incoming attacks from Azula.

This was what she was banking on because one of the things that Ebisu-sensei had told her was that when you see an enemy with a blood wound, keep the pressure up. It would make it much harder for the body to stop the blood flow thus causing more blood to seep out of the body causing a whole host of problems.

As the fight was prolonged, Azula could see that Dosu was having trouble keeping his breath at a steady rate. His heart was beating in overdrive as Azula piled up the pressure on her opponent.

What was also happening unknown to either genin was that the injury to the calf muscle of Dosu Kinuta was slowly getting worse and worse. Each movement stretched the injured muscle.

It got to the point where one movement happened to one too many as the muscle couldn't take any more stress and it got torn in an attempt to complete the movement that the brain wished it would do.

This just so happened to be at the exact same time that Azula happened to throw multiple kunai at the respective shoulder blades of the Otogakure ninja. The second he yelled out a blood curdling scream and dropped down to the floor in pain was right before the kunai were about to hit.

The change in positioning as his right leg collapsed under the pressure caused the kunai to instead lodge right into the temple of the enemy. It pierced the brain and death was instant.

Dosu fell to the ground like a sack of bricks and if only to rub salt into the wound, he landed on the kunai which pushed it further and further into his brain.

"The winner of this fight is Azula Namikaze." Gekkou Hayate stated; he coughed during the small amount of time he was speaking.

Obviously she didn't like the fact that she had needlessly killed her enemy but accidents happen. She had initially intended to hit the shoulders but because of a loss of balance, the Otogakure ninja was dead at her hands.

Because of this, the blonde haired girl didn't really feel like celebrating all that much and anyway, Ino was cheering enough as it was. As she walked over to her team, Kakashi gave her his patented eye smile and ruffled her hair. Thankfully for her, she had her hair in tight pig tails and this meant that the damage to her hair wasn't as much as it well could have been.

Both Naruto and Sasuke nodded although Naruto also greeted the girl with a small smile. It was all that she needed to know that her team was happy with her performance and glad that she won her fight. There was a small smile on the face of the girl.

"Next up is Choji Akimichi and Misumi Tsurugi." Despite the added incentive of an all you can eat restaurant, the fight was pretty meagre. So much so in fact that it ended in a double knockout therefore caused no one to advance beyond the next stage.

It was then that the electronic board which showed the names of the people who would participate started going through the remaining names. As it turned out there was yet again another fight which was solely between Konoha shinobies. This time it turned out that it was going to be between Kiba Inuzuka and Naruto Uzumaki.

"Yes! It's like we've already won already!" Kiba shouted with a massive grin on his face. As he said this, he looked down at his best friend and partner in crime Akamaru. Akamaru barked in confirmation but he wasn't as confident as what his partner was. He could sense the amount of chakra that Naruto had and it was a great deal more than what Kiba had.

The only saving grace for Akamaru was that a fight wasn't solely decided on chakra levels and that they had a numbers advantage.

"Come on Naruto! Don't lose to him! Show everyone just how good you are!" whereas Sasuke and Kakashi had reservations about outward displays of emotion, Azula had no such hard feelings about it.

"Naruto eh, sorry but he has no chance of beating Kiba Kakashi." Kurenai said as she added herself into the conversation. The red eyed woman desperately wanted to prove to everyone that she was worthy of being a jonin-sensei. Compared to the three other Konoha jonin-sensei's Kurenai knew that she was the weakest.

She wanted to prove that she had earned her title by her own merits and not because of her looks. Kurenai knew she was ridiculously good looking and she hated the fact that both men and women used that to overlook her ability to be a quality jonin-sensei.

"After all, he is the dead last of the academy graduating group." That last comment was the breaking point for Sasuke Uchiha. If there was one thing that you didn't do to Sasuke apart from talk about his older brother, it was say anything bad about the people that he cared about.

"Instead of boosting your own ego, you should be thinking about how you're going to tell Kiba's family that he died you dumb bitch." The second that this came out of the mouth of Sasuke Uchiha, the whole room went silent. Everyone including the Hokage tuned in to see what was happening.

Even the three ninjas down in the arena were waiting for the outcome of this.

"Sasuke! Don't say that! Apologize now!" Kakashi commanded of his student. As he said this, Kurenai looked shocked at the fact that the genin in front of her had the gall to say such things to her. His ego really needed getting knocked down a peg or two as far as she was concerned.

The raven haired Uchiha didn't back down however. "So it's okay for someone to say negative things about your student but when his teammate defends him you take offense? It's clear to see where your priorities lie." Sasuke replied with a sneer on his face. One action doesn't make up for six months of inaction as far as the raven haired Uchiha was concerned.

The eye smile of Kakashi turned into a glare as he looked down at Sasuke who was sitting on the ground. "We will be talking about this later." Kakashi said as he knew that talking about this in front of everyone would do no good whatsoever and only cause harm.

When he realised the conversation was over, Kiba turned around and faced Naruto. "Just for what Sasuke said, I'm going to make you a mere bloodstain on the ground." The Inuzuka said whilst snarling.

"Just for the record, we could all say that this is solely business in just wanting to win to have more chance of gaining promotion but we both know that we would be lying." Naruto said before he had a slight pause.

"This is personal; you don't like me and I sure as hell hate you. You better bring your A game and even then I will still kill you."

Noticing that this was more than just simple trash talking, Gekkou knew that he had to be at full focus because these two would not be pulling punches.

"Begin!" he called out and this set Kiba off. The first thing that he did was use the Shikyakyu no jutsu (Beast Mimicry Jutsu). The second that he finished using this jutsu, he charged at full speed at Naruto.

"Lesson one: Taijutsu." Naruto replied with a bland expression on his face as he blocked he swipe from the incoming claws of Kiba Inuzuka.

The brown haired boy was shocked that Naruto had managed to move as fast as he did so that he could block the attack. Kiba was not the only one as both Kakashi and Kurenai were surprised at the speed that Naruto had shown.

Admittedly, Kurenai had thought that behind the two boys that Gai had in his team, Kiba would be the third fastest genin on show. That point was rendered moot when she saw just how fast Sasuke was. The jonin-sensei put this down to the fact that he was the rookie of the year and that he had a few surprises up his sleeve.

Despite Kakashi telling everyone that Naruto was just as skilled as Sasuke and that he had been faking his records at the academy, Kurenai simply couldn't believe that a student was capable of doing such a thing.

Kakashi was of a similar vein of thought in that he was surprised with what Naruto was displaying. Apart from the genin examination, Kakashi hadn't seen any skills from Naruto that showcased Naruto as a capable fighter. Sure he had medical ninjutsu but that wasn't something that you could use on the front lines unless you were Tsunade. The silver haired jonin had branded Naruto as a support style shinobi but he was quickly proving that wrong.

As he blocked the hooking swipe of Kiba, it left an opening in the defence of the Inuzuka. With Naruto being Naruto, he channelled a fair amount of chakra into his muscles to increase the power behind his attack.

Naruto launched a jab which was straight into the sternum with his left hand. The hit was powerful enough to cause Kiba to start wheezing as he lost the air that was in his lungs.

Naruto quickly followed up with a kick to the exact same spot which sent Kiba flying and he landed back on the ground lying next to Akamaru.

Kiba was frustrated at the fact that he thought that the one hit that it would take to win the fight didn't even connect. He looked down at his partner and they both nodded.

They both charged at Naruto and just before he got in firing range of Naruto, he threw down a set of two smoke bombs.

Naruto cursed when he saw this as he instantly knew the plan of his enemy. He also knew that if he stayed in the smoke, it would greatly enhance the chances of Kiba getting even a minor hit on him and that was not something that he wanted to do. He wanted to completely humiliate the Inuzuka after all the times he had to hold his tongue during the academy as if he had done what he wanted to do, it would have boosted up his grade.

"Lesson two: Ninjutsu." Naruto called out and all of the people focused intently on what Naruto did. They wanted to see if Naruto could back up the claims that Sasuke had made for him.

Naruto jumped back and as he was in the air, he started doing a back flip. During his flight, Naruto went to hand seals at a pace that impressed all of the shinobi above the rank of genin who were in the room.

The blonde haired boy banked on the fact that Kiba would continue to charge after him through the smoke.

Naruto planted his hands on the ground to assist in his hand stand at speed. "Doton: Arijigoku no jutsu (Earth Release: Antlion Jutsu)" Naruto called out and as he did, a sink hole appeared on the ground that started sucking everything into it.

The blonde haired boy placed it right where he predicted Kiba to land. Unknown to Naruto, Kiba and Akamaru had switched position during the smoke. This caused Akamaru to be the one to land in the sink hole and he immediately got sucked underground.

What made it even worse for Akamaru was the fact that the ground closed over the top of him leaving no pockets of air for him to breath.

Kiba didn't see this as he had tunnel vision for Naruto. He chased after him and was gleeful when he noticed that Naruto had back himself up against the wall. There was a sinister grin on his face as he launched his hand back and delivered a vicious punch which rocketed forward.

Naruto for his part saw this coming a mile a away and he subsequently ducked underneath the punch. He was in a squatting position and blazed through hand seals and placed them on the ground.

"Doton: Tsuchi Senko (Earth Release: Earth Punch)" Naruto called out as a fist came out of the wall at a fast pace and collided with the jaw bone of Kiba Inuzuka.

Yet again the hit sent him flying as Naruto got the better of Kiba once more. "Naruto is really good for a dead last don't you think?" Sasuke said out loud and the fact that there was no response made the smirk on his face that much bigger.

Kurenai meanwhile was grinding her teeth as she hated being proven wrong by anyone let alone a mere genin. The change from going from someone who couldn't even properly perform the henge jutsu to someone who could pull out multiple earth based ninjutsus was hard to wrap her head around.

_Is this really the skill level that Kakashi is able to produce in his students? Am I a failure of a teacher since none of my students have improved as much as any of Kakashi's?_

Looking around, Kiba was surprised to find that he couldn't find Akamaru anywhere. It was even more concerning for him when he called out for his partner and he couldn't even hear his partner's voice.

"What'd you do to Akamaru!" Kiba shouted at Naruto with feral look in his eyes. If Naruto had done anything that hurt Akamaru, he was ready and willing to rip the eyes out of Naruto's face.

Naruto was unconcerned with the threat of Kiba. He knew that the genin was at a severe disadvantage without his partner and he honestly didn't care if the dog died. He was in a position of power and was not willing to relinquish it.

"I buried him alive and there's no air underground so you better hope that your pet has a good ability to hold his breath." Naruto replied with a look of boredom on his face.

Kiba started to panic when he heard his. He didn't know how long it had been since Naruto buried Akamaru but he knew that the more time he waited, the worse the outcome was going to be. Kiba instantly used his tried and trusted nose to see if he could sense out his best friend.

Luckily for Kiba he could smell his best friend despite all of the mud and ground that was surrounding the area. When the Inuzuka looked over in that direction, he saw the change in the surface and knew where Akamaru was.

The only problem for him was that Naruto was standing right on top of the ground where Akamaru was buried underneath.

With a newfound resolve, Kiba quickly ingested a soldier pill and raced over to Naruto preparing to rip his face apart.

It was unfortunate for Kiba it was only now that he realised that Naruto more than able to keep up with his top speed. In fact, Naruto was able to better it.

When you fought up against Sasuke who was a speed freak, you needed to be able to hold your own. Naruto did just that and that speed was more than enough to prevent him from ever taking a hit against Kiba Inuzuka.

The brown haired boy realised that this was getting him nowhere and the more time he spent trying to beat Naruto, he knew the less time that Akamaru had to live.

"Look Naruto, I know you don't like me" Kiba failed to mention that he didn't actually hate Naruto until just now, he was simply teasing him at school and didn't know that he had taken it too far.

"But Akamaru isn't a part of this. Let him go, he's innocent!" Kiba shouted out with passion filling his voice.

"One line isn't going to make up for all of the times that you insulted me. It's about time that you realise that your actions have consequences." Naruto stated to which only served to make Kiba even more infuriated.

Knowing that Akamaru really didn't have long left, Kiba struggled to think of something that would allow him to save Akamaru and still win the fight. In the end he realised he stuck in between a rock and a hard place. He didn't have the luxury of choosing both outcomes and he would much rather have Akamaru in his life than a shitty vest.

"Okay, I Quit." Kiba announced as he hoped that he still had enough time to save his best friend.

"The winner of this match is Naruto Uzumaki." Gekkou called out and the blonde haired boy headed to where his teammates were.

Kiba immediately rushed over to where Akamaru was and started digging with his claws. "If anything has happened to Akamaru, my whole family is going to kill you Naruto-teme, mark my words." Kiba vowed.

"I have an entire village who started hating my existence from the second I was born, what do you think makes you so special?" Naruto fired back which through Kiba for a loop. He wondered what village it was that hated Naruto and what it was that he could have done to garner that much interest.

The Otogakure jonin who was in attendance licked his lips when he heard this. To see so much talent hated by his own village made the man utterly gleeful. He was instantly forming a new plan inside his mind as a way to lure the Sharingan to his grasp.

Those two children had immense potential and he would be damned if he couldn't get the curse seal onto them. The good thing was the friendship the two of them had. If he could get Naruto to come join him then he was certain that he would be able get young Sasuke to follow.

He no longer wanted to kill the boy as per Danzo's request. The Uzumaki and the Uchiha were far more important to him alive than dead.

Hiruzen who watched this fight was intrigued into the skill level of Naruto Uzumaki. Just like the only female jonin ninja in the room, he too did not believe it when Kakashi said that Naruto was just as skilled as Sasuke. He was now getting a firsthand look at that.

He was impressed with the skill level that was shown by Naruto; it was nothing less than what the son of a former Kage should be at. Hiruzen Sarutobi could see that Naruto would make a fine ninja for Konoha. The only problem was that final statement he uttered. He really hoped that Konoha would treat the boy better. Hopefully with his good performance during the chunin exams, Naruto would become more liked throughout the village.

"You shouldn't have done that." Sasuke stated as Naruto joined the group.

Naruto merely smirked in response when he realised that everyone around him apart from Neji and Hinata were concerned. "So you saw that? I shouldn't be surprised."

"What! What was it that Naruto shouldn't have done?" Azula questioned and everybody was thankful for the blonde haired girl asking the question.

"He place two small holes in the ground right above Akamaru's head so that the dog could breathe." It was Sasuke who said this instead.

"Yosh! Such youthfulness, is this true Neji-kun?" Gai questioned to his student who had recently deactivated his Byakugan.

"Yes Gai-sensei." Neji replied to his sensei.

Kurenai for her part didn't like the fact that the loser Naruto had beaten her second best student. As far as she was concerned it only showcased her failure as a sensei in comparison to Kakashi and she hated that. She might not have been as good as a shinobi as Kakashi but she was confident that she was a much better sensei than the man who was chronically 3 hours late to everything including his own funeral.

It was too bad for her that she didn't know that Kakashi had no part whatsoever in the development of Naruto as a shinobi.

"The next fight will be between Neji Hyuga and Kankuro Sabaku." Gekkou Hayate called out with Kiba being given enough time to get Akamaru out of the ground.

The two shinobi made their way down the ramp. Neji didn't even bother turning on his Byakugan. He had seen the puppet underneath the wraps during the first exam to know who to attack.

Kankuro on the other hand was dreading this fight. He knew that Neji was someone who had a special bloodline. He was confident that he would be able to see through the disguise the second that he activated his Byakugan.

To his surprise though, Neji never did. Instead he sped from his spot in the arena to Kankuro and delivered a punch that was reminiscent of his sensei Gai. The punch however wasn't aimed at Kankuro but instead the bundle on his back. Neji connected right in the neck of Kankuro and the second that he did that, he activated his Byakugan and quickly hit two hit the sixty four palms.

It was the second fastest victory during all of the matches only behind Sasuke Uchiha.

The next fight was between Hinata Hyuga and Kin Tsuchi. Unfortunately for the girl from the village hidden in the sound, she was at a severe disadvantage due to her opponent possessing the Byakugan.

The genjutsu of Kin were rendered moot as the Byakugan managed to completely counteract her attacks. That left the girl with her substandard taijutsu against the above average taijutsu coming from Hinata.

Despite Hinata's crippling lack of self-confidence she managed to win the fight which did her the world of good. All it took though was one simple comment from Neji when she walked past him to burst that bubble.

The final fight of the tournament was easily the best in the opinion of everyone bar Gai and his team. The fight between Lee and Gaara was a fight that would have been worthy of the chunin exam final and it was a shame that one of them had to miss out on progressing.

With the fights of the chunin exam preliminary rounds having been decided, it was now time for a familiar face to join in on the conversation. "All you kids who made it to the finals of the chunin exams, congratulations." Anko stated to the nine shinobi standing in front of her.

It was then that Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage took over the conversation. "The finals are one month from now and are designed to give you time to give the best you possibly can. You now have one month to prepare for your fight thus allowing you time to prepare specifically for your opponent." The Sandaime Hokage stated to which they all nodded.

The fact that it gave time for them to recover from all of the injuries that they had went unsaid although there were a lot of fights that were completely one sided.

"Now we will be doing the draw for the final matches." Ibiki said as he held out a box which had a respective number on them. Naruto was the first up and he managed to pull out a 1. He would be first up.

By the time all was said and done, Naruto found out that he was going up against Hinata Hyuga. The blonde haired boy, after the performance of Hinata was extremely confident that he would win his fight.

The same could be said about Sasuke when he found out that he would be going up against the wind based Temari Sabaku. This was despite the fact that his major element was weak to wind.

Out of the matchups, the one that seemed to be the most evenly balanced was the third fight of the tournament which was none other than Azula Namikaze going up against Neji Hyuga.

Once the drawing was done, Team Seven immediately left the room and headed for their normal meeting spot under the orders of Kakashi. It took half an hour as they went at a leisurely pace before the quintet of ninjas found themselves at training ground Seven.

"Now, Azula, there is someone in Konoha who hasn't been here in a while who is very excited to see you once again. If you go to the hot springs now you will find him in his familiar spot." Kakashi said with an eye smile on his face.

The blonde haired girl's face had a massive grin the second that she heard that her godfather was in town. She didn't even give a goodbye to her teammates as she rushed off to where Ero-sennin frequently visited.

"Now, since it's just the three of us, let's get down to some training." Kakashi said with an eye smile on his face. He had already gone through what he was going to start teaching his two students.

"We already have good teamwork so we don't need you. Can we go now?" Naruto questioned to his sensei. This immediately removed the smile on the face of Kakashi.

_Fair enough, I guess I opened myself open to that one. It's been five months and the only thing that I have taught them is teamwork._ "Fair play, I deserved that one but I am now going to start teaching you things apart from just teamwork." Kakashi said with his eye smile returning.

"How are you going to be able to train us when the memorial stone is so important?" Sasuke questioned with a look of indifference on his face.

The eye smile of Kakashi fell yet again as he got another insult chucked in his face. The thing that he hated the most was that all of these were true. "Fine, another insult, the fact is that I am trying to make it up to you by training you two before the final round." Kakashi replied finally losing patience with his two students.

He hoped by being straightforward with his intentions, they would accept that he had made a mistake and allow him to help them for the upcoming exams.

"Five months of a complete disregard for your duties for your job can't be made up for in one attempt. The simple fact is that neither of us like you because you focus only on yourself and your failures that you disregard everyone around you. Maybe when you become a little bit less selfish with the woe is me attitude, we might take you up on your offer. You're not the only one who comes from a shit background so that doesn't give you the right to ignore the fact that you have a direct duty of care."

Sasuke stated with venom and the second he finished saying this, both he and Naruto used the shunshin jutsu to leave the area with Kakashi rooted to the spot. He didn't move from said spot for at least a couple of hours as he thought about what Sasuke had just said to him.

He felt like the biggest piece of shit in the history of mankind. _Minato-sensei, I'm so sorry I failed as a sensei; Yet another failure of mine._

**x-X-x**

"So see you in a month's time?" Naruto questioned to his best friend. He had a back pack on and he was ready for his training trip.

"Yeah, our fight in the grand final will be something to remember." Sasuke said with a grin on his face. He too couldn't wait to see just how much both he and Naruto could improve in a month's time.

After a one armed hug from each of them, Naruto and Sasuke used the same jutsu and teleported to a different world.

**x-X-x**

"Shizune, it's finally time to go to the Shikkotsu forest. I have already spoken with Lady Katsuyu and she has agreed to let you stay and also help you with your medical ninjutsu whilst I will be attempting to learn Sage Mode once again." Tsunade who announced to her apprentice what was happening.

Shizune for part was ecstatic when she heard this. She knew that the Slug clan hardly ever allowed a non Senju onto their sacred lands. To think that she was able to go on them truly was a blessing.

**Author's note:**

**Had a buck's party for the entire weekend which was why this chapter wasn't out sooner than it could have been.**


	11. That you're smothering me

Author's Note:

I have rewritten this story. For the sake of saving you guys' time, I will give a quick tl;dr:

I have changed Naruko's Name to Azula  
I have changed the situation regarding the jinchuuriki status of Naruto and Azula. All of Konoha now thinks that Naruto is the jinchuuriki apart from a few select people. Azula doesn't know that she has the Kyubi sealed inside of her.  
I will be going into more detail about the situation in the coming chapter.

**x-X-x**

"Hey Gaki, how's it going?" Jiraiya said with a big grin on his face. Azula didn't respond verbally as she launched herself and wrapped her arms around the Toad Sannin.

"It's really great to see you again Jiraiya-Kyoufu" Naruto responded, she didn't let the hug go as she spoke to her godfather.

"It's good to see you too ya little bundle of energy!" Jiraiya replied with the grin not leaving his face for even a second.

Eventually the hug between the two of them came to an end. "So how's it been going? Are there any boys that I have to scare off?" Jiraiya suggested in a grandiose fashion. The over exaggeration was something that made Azula giggle.

There was a blush on her face. "No Kyoufu, I don't have a boyfriend. All of the boys that I know apart from Sasuke and Naruto want me for my name and not because they actually like me."

Knowing that he could well focus on the negative of that, Jiraiya decided to instead go for the positive. "So who's this Sasuke and Naruto huh? I bet with you growing up into a beautiful young girl they want to be with you." The Toad Sannin said with a knowing grin on his face.

Azula was scandalized! "It's not like that Ero-sennin!" The blonde haired girl immediately said as she tried to dispel what was going through the mind of her godfather. "Naruto and Sasuke hated me for all of the time during the academy!"

"Uh huh" Jiraiya said with a smirk on his face as he knew what was going on. "When I was there age I was really mean to Tsunade-hime because I had a massive crush on her. I bet these two secretly like you just they don't know how to properly show this."

Azula was surprised when she heard this. She didn't know that her godfather had a massive crush on Tsunade. A seed of doubt was implanted into her mind as she wondered whether or not it was possible that either Sasuke or Naruto liked her in that way. She didn't know what to think about the situation.

Putting that to the back of her mind, Naruto got down to business. "Come on Jiraiya-sensei, you gotta start training me because I don't just think that winning my first match is good enough! I want to win the whole damn thing!" Azula said with a look of extreme determination on her face.

"That's just what I wanted to hear! Now the first thing that you're gonna do is water walking." Jiraiya stated to the girl who nodded.

As the duo got started on their training, Azula couldn't but think about the fact that maybe either Naruto or Sasuke liked her in that way. She couldn't help but blush at the thought. If she admitted it to herself, then both of the boys were pretty cute.

That being said, she had no idea how that would work out for her team. If there was one thing that she didn't want to do, it was break up the great team dynamic that she had been trying to set up for the past 4 and a half years.

**x-X-x**

Sasuke Uchiha knew that training was going to be hard. He just didn't expect it to be hard. The second that he arrived at the Falcon summoning clan he got ordered to place his backpack at their home. As soon as that was done, Sasuke Uchiha headed out to the valley where he was told that his training would begin.

Sasuke was immediately given a whole set of weights for training; this consisted of two forearm weights, two shin weights and a weight vest. Each of these was controlled by chakra so that Sasuke could get the most out of them without having to constantly change the variables in weight.

It was now time for Sasuke to get down to the sole reason he was here. Under the instruction of the clan head Horus, Sasuke did a variety of movements which he initially thought he would be able to do easily.

Sasuke was surprised however when he found out just how much he was relying on his major muscle groups like his quads and calf muscles. The raven haired Uchiha now started going through movements such as lunges and different variations of squats and dead lifts.

His hamstrings, hip flexors arse muscles were all incredibly saw after a light workout in comparison. He even had trouble keeping his balance when doing a lunge and much to his embarrassment, Sasuke fell over a few times.

This was not a good look as far as he was concerned as he knew that the summoning clan demanded perfection.

It was this though that fuelled the determination of Sasuke. Nothing was acceptable and when he found out there was an aspect of something the considered himself good at he was rather poor at. Sasuke quickly learnt how to properly activate the muscles in his body and thus he found out that he was faster, stronger and more importantly better than what he was yesterday.

The raven haired Uchiha was happy with the amount of progress that he had made in only one workout that he couldn't wait to see just how much he had improved in a month's time.

**x-X-x**

Naruto found himself in a situation that was the complete opposite to Sasuke. Where Sasuke hit the ground running from the second he arrived at the home of the falcon clan, Naruto met and spoke with Katsuyu for a while.

It was during this time that Naruto found out that he was not he only summoner to arrive at the Shikkotsu Forest. "There are two chakra signatures that just entered our lands." Katsuyu stated to which Naruto took the initiative to take matters into his own hands.

He wanted to prove that he was capable of being a member of the Slug clan. Placing his hands on the ground, Naruto pushed his chakra out and he found out the positioning of these two enemies. It was when he did this that Naruto gulped.

From what he could tell from the second that they stood on his earth, he could feel their chakra signatures and knew that he was in for a rough time. Naruto was confident that he could hold his own against the jonin level chakra signature because he himself had that level of chakra.

It was when he found out that the chakra of the second person was something that instilled a little bit of fear into Naruto Senju. Whoever this other person was, Naruto knew he was in for the fight of his life onsidering they had a similar sized chakra flowing through their body as Kakashi and Sandaime Hokage although leaning more towards Sandaime Hokage side of the scale.

Naruto would not back down from the fight though. He had listened intently to the speech of one Ibiki Morino who stated that no matter what adversity you faced, you had to complete your mission.

Naruto took that to heart and was very much happy that he was fighting on his own turf. The blonde haired boy was confident that he was going to have to reveal to these to strangers that he had the Mokuton but he was prepared to do it for the sake of the Senju's relationship with the summoning clan.

The thing that made Naruto weary though was the fact that the slugs weren't willing to help him out. _Maybe this is a test for me? _Naruto thought to himself as he prepared for the fight of his life as he felt the two chakra signatures shortening the distance between the two.

When he gained sight of the two incoming shinobi, Naruto immediately realised why it was that none of the slugs, especially Katsuyu-sama. He felt like a complete fool for having never guessing that it was possible for the other slug summoner to be at the clan at the same time.

"Hello, you must be Tsunade-sama." Naruto stated to which he included a small bow.

Tsunade was surprised at the level of respect she was receiving from the kid in front of her but it was something that she did like. "And you must be the new kid who came out of nowhere.

Naruto in all honesty didn't know how to respond to this. He looked to both Tsunade and Shizune for some help. Thankfully it was Shizune who helped out the flow of the conversation. "Don't worry Naruto-chan; Tsunade is a nice person when once she gets to know you."

This threw Naruto into a loop. For all intents and purposes, he was led to believe by the text books that Tsunade was the only person alive who was a part of the Senju clan.

"Sorry but I don't know who you are, All of the records I have read up have stated that Tsunade-sama was the only member of the Senju clan a part from me." Naruto stated with a sheepish look on his face.

Seeing the way the boy acted and how he was so polite, Shizune couldn't help but giggle at how cute he was. Tsunade also had a high opinion of the boy but that was for a completely different reason. She loved the way how he regarded her so highly.

When she heard this, Tsunade felt that it was prudent for her to speak up. "When you have been the summoner for the past forty five years, you get some privileges." Tsunade said as she knew what Naruto was referring to.

Naruto nodded the second that he heard this.

"Now, I haven't said hello to lady Katsuyu in a while so let's go and do that. Once were done with that tell me all about yourself Naruto-san." Tsunade said with a small smile on her face. That smile grew even bigger when she saw the big grin on his face.

**x-X-x**

"Learning to walk on water was easy Jiraiya-sensei!" Azula said with a big grin on her face.

"Hey now little missy, just because you managed to get walking on water down, it doesn't mean that everything else was going to come so easily." Despite the fact that he didn't want to help inflate the ego of Azula, Jiraiya had to admit that the girl had as much skill and even more potential than her father at the same age.

Azula simply stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry as her form of response. Jiraiya didn't even bother to respond. Seeing the look of utter happiness on the face of his goddaughter was something that he did not want to ruin.

"Alright then, if you think you're so good, how about you prove it to me by completing this next jutsu." Jiraiya challenged to the girl and the second she heard this, she stopped from jumping on top of the hot spring and raced over to her sensei.

"Okay sensei, you're so totally on!" Azula responded to the challenge. There was no sign of fear whatsoever.

"That's just what I like to hear so now if you wouldn't mind, how about ya sign this." Jiraiya stated with happiness and even though he said it in the form of a question, it was more in the form of a statement. There was no chance that Azula Namikaze was going to ignore something that wasn't her practically her birth right.

"Wow! So you're really going to let me sign the summoning contract with the Toads?" Azula gushed as she was filled with excitement.

"Of course!" Jiraiya said as he pretended to be offended by the insinuation that he wouldn't let the girl sign the contract. "I just wanted to make sure that you were well rounded in all aspects of being a shinobi before I let you sign the contract so that you didn't over rely on them."

Azula nodded and didn't think twice before signing her name in blood right next to the spot her father had signed the contract.

For the blonde haired girl this was another piece of the puzzle which was her family. It allowed her to feel that much closer to her dead parents which was something that she treasured beyond all else.

**x-X-x**

Sasuke had finally finished his intense taijutsu and body conditioning workout and yet he still knew there was whole lot more that he had to do.

After having just come from the chunin preliminary rounds, Sasuke had seen something that he wanted to incorporate into his arsenal of tricks.

The person who Sasuke was most impressed with despite the fact that he had lost was Rock Lee. When he found out that the kid had a disability where he couldn't use chakra and subsequently found a love for taijutsu… Sasuke was impressed.

Rock Lee had better taijutsu than what he did and when you considered that Sasuke focused heavily on his taijutsu, it said a lot. Out of respect for the fact that Lee was a taijutsu specialist and he knew just how much effort the boy would have had to put in to get to that level.

With that being said, there was something that Sasuke saw that he knew that he was going to add into his fighting style. It also helped that they could be used in a variety of situations in case someone got injured.

Sasuke Uchiha had decided to start wrapping his hands in tape to not only prevent the injuries from training but to also use them as a means to catch the enemy off guard. The mind of the raven haired Uchiha was already in full swing as he thought of new finishing moves.

All he had to do now was practice moving the tape and wrapping them around a target at fast speeds. Taking the initiative, Sasuke started channelling chakra into the wraps and tried making them move.

There was a little bit of success on the first try and this made the raven haired Uchiha happy. Fifteen minutes later of extensive training on the jutsu, Sasuke was confident that he had gotten it to a point where he could start using it on wooden log or training dummy.

Because he had already completed his intensive taijutsu training for the day, Sasuke Uchiha decided that he would wait until tomorrow.

There were more important skills that Sasuke needed to focus on. The black haired boy pulled out scroll from his back pack and opened it up.

Out of all of the things that Sasuke wanted to achieve over this one month training session was, this was the one that Sasuke was determined to complete the most.

He was going to recreate the chidori.

**x-X-x**

It was a load off of his chest and it felt damn good for Naruto to say it to someone other than Sasuke. it felt nice placing his trust in someone new.

"Come here Naruto." Tsunade called out to the boy which a look on his face that he was unable to read. The blonde haired boy was a bit apprehensive but he did as he was told. He wanted nothing more than for the last member of his family to like him.

In a movement that surprised both Naruto and Shizune, Tsunade opened up her arms and wrapped the genin child into a big hug. Naruto was shocked to the core as this was the first time that he had ever received a proper hug. Of course he got one from Azula but that wasn't the same. She placed one of her hands on his chest when he was in the hospital bed suffering from chakra exhaustion.

Tsunade was giving him one of those hugs where she completely enveloped him. Naruto questioned himself if the hug that he was getting from Tsunade was similar to the one a mother gives her child.

It took a lot of confidence from Naruto as he slowly placed his arms on the back of Tsunade to mirror the hug on his end. "It's okay Naruto, I'll be here for you." The second that Naruto heard these words, he broke.

Tears started forming in his eyes and they quickly started falling down his face.

Admittedly, she knew that this was rather out of character to say the least. When she heard his story about being the Kyubi jinchuuriki and starting from the absolute bottom managed to overcome the odds was truly inspiring. She was so proud that he had persevered through everything and managed to come out of it a functioning member of society. Tsunade knew that if she was in the same position, she would have cracked a long time ago and butchered Konoha.

Shizune who was watching all of this unfold also had a tear stroll down the side of her face. It wasn't because she was sad though. The tear was actually one of happiness as she finally saw the real Tsunade come out of her cave for the first time in a long time.

It was during this hug that Tsunade had this odd feeling run through her as she was rubbing the back of Naruto.

Whilst she was not the most perfect sensor in the history of mankind, Tsunade was capable enough to sense bijuu chakra when it was right next to her and right now, she couldn't sense anything coming from the boy resting against her bosom.

For a mere second, Tsunade quickly took one of her hands off of Naruto and did some seals. Once this was done, she placed that hand on the back of the neck of Naruto.

The chakra of Tsunade spread throughout the body of Naruto desperately trying to find a sign of bijuu chakra. This did not occur and the blonde haired woman instantly knew that Naruto was not the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune.

The mind of the legendary medic was churning at a rapid rate as she put the pieces of the puzzle together. _Naruto-kun isn't the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi which means that there is someone else who is and they are using Naruto-chan as the scapegoat!_

Tsunade raged to high hell and she instantly broke the elongated hug that she was sharing with Naruto.

As she did this it was a shock to Naruto as he admittedly didn't want things to end. To his surprise though, Naruto got to watch one of the Sannin unleash all of their pent up fury.

Tsunade gathered up three quarters of her entire chakra reserves and placed it all into a single gathering in her fist. From the shear amount of chakra in the area, the hand of the blonde haired woman was coated in a vibrant blue.

As the limb connected with the ground, the results were immediate.

Unlike times where when he used the chakra enhanced strength previously, it split the ground into multiple chunks, this time around Tsunade completely eviscerated even the smallest speck of dust in the area of her attack.

As she aimed at a perpendicular angle to the ground, the aftermath of Tsunade's punch left a massive hole in the ground. When one looked down into the small but massively deep hole, you couldn't even see the bottom.

Both Shizune and Naruto to say the least were completely and utterly shocked. Naruto even went so far as to let a little bit of wee out he was that frightened. It was only now that he realised just how powerful the Sannin were and how much he still had to go before he was even close to be at that level.

Tsunade was heavily breathing as she was on her haunches. "Uhh, T-t-Tsunade-sama, what was all that for?" Naruto asked with slight trepidation.

The blonde haired woman ignored the question of her sole family member. "I am going to gut that utter piece of shit in front of his grandchild!" Tsunade furiously yelled out to the air surrounding her.

"Tsunade-sama, is everything okay?" Shizune questioned even though she knew that things obviously weren't. the black haired woman knew however that this would be the best way for Tsunade to explain what was actually wrong.

"I am officially a missing ninja of Konoha for what they did to my Naruto!" Tsunade still in her anger induced rage, shouted out to the sky.

Both Naruto and Shizune were shocked at what they had heard from Tsunade. "Don't you think you're being a bit rash Tsunade-sama? Becoming a missing ninja is a big deal!" Shizune hysterically said as she was worried what had happened to her sensei.

Naruto meanwhile struggled to process the information and tried to speak multiple times but failed in doing so. His mouth was open like a fish and the gobsmacked expression stayed on his face for a while as his brain struggled to process what he had just heard.

_My Naruto_

_My Naruto_

_My Naruto_

Once his brain processed just how much Tsunade cared for him and it had only been a day, the blonde haired boy couldn't be any happier. He had a face splitting grin on his face and he didn't even care for a second.

Finally Tsunade had calmed down enough so that she could answer the questions from the two nearby. The Sannin walked over to Naruto and gave him yet another hug.

"Naruto-chan, you're not the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi." Tsunade said as she softly told Naruto what he didn't want to hear. There was no nice way of putting it so she hoped that saying straight forward, would be similar to a band aid.

"No! NO! NO!" Naruto shouted out as he struggled to come to term with what he had just heard. "I am because Konoha treats me like shit. They wouldn't be calling me demon and monster if I wasn't." Naruto said as he struggled in the vice grip, hug that Tsunade was administering.

"Naruto, I just ran a jutsu over you and it detected no bijuu chakra whatsoever." Tsunade said with a forced smile on her face.

"No! that's just because the seal that the Yondaime was so good that your jutsu can't sense it." Naruto replied instantly and it was easy to see the stages of denial as he didn't want to believe a word that Tsunade was saying.

"Oh Naruto, honey…" Tsunade said look on her face and put her hand on the back of his head and pressed him onto her chest. Having spent a long period of time around mothers' in hospitals as she was generally the one delivering the baby, Tsunade knew that placing Naruto to her chest would comfort the boy.

"NO!" Naruto shouted before tears started falling down his face for the second time in one day. "T-t-they wouldn't." Naruto said in between sobs.

She knew that he didn't want to hear it but it was something that she had to say. "They needed someone to take the blame so that the real jinchuuriki could live a hassle free life."

"I hate Konoha! This is the final straw! I am going to become a missing ninja also!" Naruto vowed to which Tsunade smiled. She really didn't want Naruto to stay in Konoha.

"How about I help you out in your training Naruto-chan, I'll even teach you my special chakra enhanced super strength." Tsunade said with a smile on her face as she hoped to cheer up the spirits of her last living family member. Judging by the massive grin that was on his face, Tsunade had done just that.

Shizune who was watching all of this unfold was truly blessed. Tears of joy were streaming down her face and she didn't even bother to hide them.

Her Tsunade-sensei was back and she was better than ever!

**x-X-x**

Jiraiya was incredibly impressed with the progress that his goddaughter had made. He did think that she would be capable of summoning Gamabunta but he certainly didn't think that she would be capable of doing this without the help of the Kyubi. It just went to show just how much potential was in his little ray of sunshine.

"Okay Azula-chan! That's enough working with the toads for now, there's something new that I want to get you started on. With the way you have been gobbling up what I've got to teach you, I have every confidence that you will learn this next style before the chunin exam finals."

"Wow! You really mean it Jiraiya-sensei?" Azula had to admit to herself that training with her godfather was by far the best training she had ever had. She didn't really learn anything under Kakashi-niisan and Ebisu-sensei only ever taught her boring stuff.

With the training she was getting from her godfather, Azula hoped that she caught up to her two teammates. She really didn't want to be the third wheel on the team.

"Yep! And that is why I am going to teach you this." Jiraiya proudly said as his hair extended around his body and formed a protective cocoon.

"Wow! That' so cool Jiraiya-sensei, I've always wanted to learn that whenever I saw it." Azula said it and as she did that, she started pulling her golden hair out of the pig tails that they were in.

"You're hair looks much better when it's free flowing compared to being in pig tails." Jiraiya stated.

"You mean it, you're not just saying that are you?" Azula questioned.

"Nah, you look just like your mum when you have your hair out like that apart from the fact that hers was red and yours is blonde."

The expression on the face of Azula turned demure expression on her face. She didn't know how to truly express the emotions she felt so she settled for the obvious. "Thankyou Kyoufu, that really means a lot to me." Azula said with the biggest smile on her face that she could possibly muster.

"So ya ready how to learn now to turn your hair into a weapon?" Jiraiya said with a giddy expression on his face. He was really just a big kid in the body of an adult.

"You bet I am!" her oceanic blue eyes radiated with both exuberance and determination.

After the departure of Tsunade in his life, Jiraiya wasn't sure what was worth living for anymore. After the death of Minato and Kushina, this feeling was only doubled. It wasn't until he saw the smiling face of Azula Namikaze as a baby that Jiraiya found something worth living for.

Admittedly though, he thought that they were going to name the baby Naruto but he guessed that because it was a girl, the name Naruto wouldn't have fit. He wasn't complaining because he thought the name Azula was a perfect fit for his little princess.

**x-X-x**

"You're positional awareness is awful Naruto-chan." Tsunade called out as both she and Shizune chased after Naruto from different directions.

"Hey, it's not like I have had any time to learn that stuff! Sasuke and I have taught ourselves and I have only been on one mission." Naruto returned as he jumped out of the way of Shizune's chakra scalpel.

Naruto Senju was not relying on his positional awareness at all. Instead he was relying on his body's conditioning and its reflexes. Unfortunately for Naruto his abilities simply weren't good enough as Tsunade connected with a chakra enhanced kick to the side.

As the kick landed, Naruto exploded in pieces of wood. Tsunade didn't pay much attention to it because she thought it was a substitution.

"Mokuton: Sabotenpinmisairu jutsu (Wood Release: Cactus Pin Missile Jutsu)" Naruto called out as a large cactus plant came out of the ground and used the two branches which were almost like hands to fire off a barrage of poisonous needles at his opponents.

To say the least, both Shizune and more importantly, Tsunade were completely flabbergasted at the fact that her Naruto had an ability that was thought to be lost throughout the ages. "YOU HAVE THE MOKUTON?" Tsunade screamed out loud to Naruto. She couldn't believe what her eyes had just witnessed.

"Yes, it is how I proved that I was a member of the Senju clan." Naruto said after having made a calculated risk. He wanted to wait until he had a good judge of character on Tsunade before he revealed the fact that he could use the same prized bloodline of Hashirama Senju.

After having spent a week with the woman, he was confident that she wouldn't reveal his secret. There was that and there was also the fact that it felt good to let someone else in on his secret.

Tsunade and Shizune were the only people outside of Sasuke who knew about his abilities.

"Can you not tell anyone though please. I want to wait until I am strong enough to not be forced into making any decisions."

Seeing that Naruto was placing his trust in them, the two women did the only thing that they could in the situation. "Of course Naruto-kun, we promise that we won't tell anyone." Shizune said as she offered out a calming smile.

"Thank you, it means a lot to me."

"Hey! Just because there is a new development, it doesn't mean that this spar is over!" Tsunade shouted as she got the attention of Naruto back onto the matter at hand. She knew that he was heavily under experienced in comparison to the skill level he had and Tsunade knew that she really badly had to even that out.

When Naruto eventually got to the point where he would be fighting against people of a similar skill level, they wouldn't be pulling punches and that meant that neither could she.

As all of this was going on, Naruto had the biggest grin on his face. For the first time in his life, he was finally able to go all out and not fear the repercussions.

**x-X-x**

Horus was curious, he had been watching Sasuke read over a scroll for the past ten minutes and wondered what was going on. "What are you doing young Sasuke?" the half man half falcon questioned as he walked over to his young prodigy.

"I am trying to recreate a technique. All of the information is on this scroll. The problem is though that I have never seen it." Sasuke said as he handed over the scroll to his summon clan leader.

"Ahh, the chidori. Yes, I have heard of this technique. The stronger version of this is supposed to be able to cut through a lightning bolt. Having this would certainly increase your killing potential." Horus said as he studied the material in front of him. He took a few minutes before he spoke up again.

"After doing the hand seals, lay your hand out flat. Start channelling a continuous amount of chakra in a cone formation that encases your whole entire hand with the pointy end being at the end of your fingertips." Horus stated to which Sasuke nodded.

He quickly did the hand seals and as stated, Sasuke watched how he formed a small cone of electricity around his hand. There was a faint tinge of blue going around the hand and there was a small noise coming from it and for the first time since he had started attempting to recreate the jutsu, Sasuke felt good about his progress.

Testing the jutsu out, Sasuke tested it out as he plunged his hand into the hard rock beneath him. Normally, if he had done this his hand would have simply bounced straight off but thanks to the usage of the chidori, Sasuke managed to get his fingers into the rock before the momentum stopped.

Sasuke immediately let go of the jutsu and tried to regain control over his breathing. Using the jutsu had taken a lot out of him. "I've really got to increase my chakra reserves." Sasuke said to himself.

As Horus doing this, he was beyond impressed with the work ethic of the boy. Even A Yotsuki chose instead to cut time on training the lightning armour so that he could focus on the four finger nukite. To see that Sasuke was still willing to put as much effort as he possibly could into every aspect of training, Horus knew that Sasuke was going to reach the very top.

What made it even scarier was the fact that there were many things that he still had yet to teach young Sasuke that the boy didn't even know about.

**x-X-x**

"I really wish that I had help from someone to learn my Mokuton jutsu. It would be nice to be able to learn a jutsu without having to come up with it from scratch." Naruto lamented. Despite all of the help that he had gotten from the notes that Sasuke's clan had on the Mokuton, a lot of them were really faded and he could hardly read anything.

The only jutsu that he had managed to recreate was the wood clone jutsu. Every other jutsu that he had in his Mokuton arsenal was one that he had created from thin air.

"And aren't you lucky that you know just the person who can help in facilitating that." Tsunade said as she came and sat down next to Naruto. As she did this she started ruffling his hair.

Sweat was pouring off of her body as she had just finished her training session with Katsuyu-sama on the usage of Sage chakra. She had to coat her body in special mucus that came from one of the elder slugs but she didn't care. Tsunade didn't care for one second.

Of course she was a woman who loved to look pretty but she wasn't someone who refused to get dirty if the situation required it. She had made more progress in the three weeks she had been at the Shikkotsu Forest compared to the previous two months she had spent trying to master the Sage mode when she was much younger.

If completing Sage mode as something that required her to use the mucus from the still lake then Tsunade was all for it. "What do ya mean Tsunade-sensei?" Naruto questioned as he broke the woman out of her revere.

"Well I've decided that I am going to come back to Konoha for the chunin exams so that I can watch your performance." As she did this, Tsunade continued to ruffle the hair of the boy sitting next to her.

Naruto blushed but eventually got out of it by resting his head on her shoulder. Naruto wondered whether or not if this was too forward and that she might back off from showing affection to him. The thing was, he would never know if he never tried.

Tsunade locked up when she felt Naruto rest his head on her shoulder as it reminded her of a time where Nawaki would do the exact same. She quickly shrugged this off and wrapped the arm he was resting on around and gave him a one armed hug.

"Thanks for that, it really means a lot to me that you and Shizune-chan will be there for me. This just means that I have to try extra hard to impress you guys." Naruto said with a big smile on his face.

"You've already impressed me heaps Naruto-chan. When I was your age I was nowhere near as good a shinobi as what you are now." Naruto was definitely surprised when he heard this. He knew he was above average but he didn't think he was in the elite category of shinobi. To hear from his idol that he was better than her at the same age, well he didn't know what to say.

Seeing the state that Naruto was in, the woman who let her hair hang out of the usual pig tales spoke up. "You know what you can do though Naruto?" Tsunade said and Naruto looked up to her with his bright blue eyes.

_He's so cute_

"You can help me win some money!" Tsunade said with a smirk on her face. She was already thinking of all the money that was going to come to her. It was going to be enough to pay off quite a few of her debt collectors and buy her some time.

"How am I going to do that Tsunade-sensei?" Naruto questioned with a curious look on his face.

"Oh, I am going to be betting on you to win the chunin exams. Everyone will think that you have no hope of winning but I know just how good you are so it's essentially free money!" The blonde haired woman said with a big grin on her face.

To her horror, Naruto disagreed with her. "I don't think you should do that if you want guaranteed money. My best friend is also in the tournament and neither one of us have ever won one of our spars."

"What! Who could be good enough to be even with you?" Tsunade commented as she didn't think it was possible for there to be any genin capable of fighting Naruto.

There was a smile that came on the face of Naruto. "My best friend Sasuke Uchiha."

"Uchiha, I should have known…" Tsunade lamented to herself. Just when free money popped up, someone had to take it away.

"What do you mean?" Naruto responded. He hoped that there was no friction between Tsunade and Sasuke. He had no idea what he would do.

"Whenever there was a Strong Senju, there was always a just as strong Uchiha. There was Hashirama-jiji and Madara, Tobirama-jiji and Izuna."

"Oh… Okay then, say, how much would you get if you bet for both me and Sasuke to reach the grand final because I can guarantee that to happen." Naruto said with the upmost of confidence. He had to fight Hinata who was essentially a pushover given her lack of confidence. The only struggle as Gaara but he had a plan for that.

Sasuke had the easier draw as far as he was concerned since he had Temari and Azula. From what he saw, Temari heavily relied on her fan and Sasuke could beat her with just one fire ninjutsu. Then there was Azula and as much as he liked the girl, Naruto couldn't see her for a second facing him in the final.

Tsunade, being the heavy gambler she was, was crunching the numbers inside her head. Given the fact that there were double the chances for the bet to fail and she needed to get both sides of the draw correct, Tsunade worked out that the odds would be a little bit higher.

"It would roughly be that for every ryo you bet, you would get one hundred-ish." Tsunade said with a massive grin on her face. The fight between Naruto and Gaara was pretty much the sole reason why the bet was so high. No one would expect a no name orphan to beat the jinchuuriki son of the Kazekage.

"Wow! You can make that much money betting?" Naruto questioned with an expression of pure and utter shock on his face.

Tsunade grinned. She knew that she had just converted another into the past time of the Senju clan. She hoped that Naruto had much better luck than both herself and Hashirama combined.

"Yeah, it's because of such a high risk of failure, I mean no one expects you to beat Gaara let alone get to face him by beating the Hyuga heir."

"What! How come I'm the underdog against Hinata? I mean she was really unconvincing in her fight and I completely dominated mine."

"That's because whatever happens during the two earlier rounds doesn't get revealed to the public who make the odds apart from who is competing. They see you as the dead last shinobi who is getting carried by your two teammates and that means that no one thinks you're capable of winning."

"Well I guess I should just completely use that against them shouldn't I? I wouldn't be much of a shinobi if I didn't would I?" Naruto said with a sly smirk on his face.

"That's my boy!" Tsunade said in utter jubilation as she grabbed Naruto's head by both temples and planted a big old smooch on his forehead. She didn't realise what she was doing until she had just done it. Fear was running through her body as she had no idea how Naruto was going to act. She wondered whether or not he would back off considering that they hadn't known each other for very long at all.

Naruto for his part had essentially locked up shop and gone home for the day. His brain was an utter mess right now trying to sort out the emotions he was feeling. The blonde haired boy in the end settled for wrapping Tsunade up in a hug as his response.

_I wonder if this is what having a mum feels like?_

Tsunade quickly returned the hug with the boy just entering his teens. Judging from the reaction, things between Naruto didn't need repairing at all. In fact, things seemed to be even better before and they seemed to become closer with one another.

"You smell really bad and you're all sweaty." Naruto commented out of the blue.

The response from the blonde haired woman was simply to chuck Naruto really high in the air. It wasn't just straight up though as Naruto sailed through the air and crash landed in a lake. He didn't care though because he was having the time of his life right now.

**x-X-x**

"Tsunade-sama, Naruto, could you please come over here." Lady Katsuyu stated to which the two ninjas did as they were asked. They sat cross legged as they waited for whatever it was that the clan head had to say.

"What I am about to say is not something that is easy for me to say." Naruto looked nervous whilst Tsunade gave a look that stated 'is this something that you can tell me without Naruto around?'"

"Naruto, ever since we found out that you had the Mokuton, we the Namekuji clan have been searching for any traces of your lineage." Whilst Naruto responded positively to this, there was a sense of dread that formed in the stomach of Tsunade and she didn't know why; this scared her.

"As it turns out, Toka Senju as I am sure that you know Tsunade had a child." Tsunade did know that. Kashima Senju was a good person; he just never quite had what it took to be a ninja.

"One night, Kashima Senju had a one night stand with someone and during this process, either the condom broke, the pill was ineffective or they simply did not use any form of protection." Although he would have hoped he was actually wanted by his parents, at least Naruto now knew who his father was.

"But wait a second, Kashima can't be the father of Naruto because he died due to a heart attack. Plus he would have had to of been 50 at the age of Naruto's conception." Tsunade responded as she struggled to get her head around the new information Lady Katsuyu was giving to her.

The smile on Naruto's face faded instantly when he found out that his potential father was dead.

The expression on the face of the Namekuji clan leader stayed the same. "He is not Naruto's father Tsunade-sama. He is Naruto's grandfather." Naruto's head shot straight back up when he heard who his grandfather was.

"Okay then but how come we never heard of Kashima having a child. There was no Senju child born around that time except for brother." Tsunade said that last bit out rather painfully. Naruto knew that there was a story there but he knew that now was not the time to get into it.

It just went to show how far the Senju clan had fallen in numbers where only one baby had been born in the space of 10 years.

"We have found out that the child did not become a member of the clan because Kashia Senju didn't know that he had a child."

"I have been handling this case and when I snuck into the records room of all listed residents of Konoha, I searched for the file of Naruto's father and found out that his mother had left him at the orphanage."

_Wow, I was just destined for a happy family with the white picket fence no wasn't I?_

"So you know who my father is then Lady Katsuyu." Naruto stated and even though it was in the form of a question, he already knew the answer, he just wanted the slug to expand on the answer.

"Yes, I do Naruto-kun. First though I will tell you who your mother is because that is where you get your last name from." Tsunade was paying heavy attention to this because from the second that Naruto introduced himself as an Uzumaki who also happened to have Senju blood in him, she had taken an interest in him.

"Naruto, your mother is Kushina Uzumaki."

"Then that means…" Both Tsunade and Naruto said at the same time as the two of them came to the same conclusions.

Before anything else happened, Tsunade immediately reached out and grabbed Naruto. She placed him in her lap. She didn't know what type of reaction she was going to get from Naruto but she was pretty damn sure that it wasn't going to be a positive one.

"Yes Naruto, your father is none other than the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze."

Naruto was motionless for a while and Tsunade even got worried to the point where she ran a diagnostic on him. Eventually, he spoke up. "Th-they separated us at birth!" Naruto raged as he struggled to free himself from the grip that Tsunade had over him.

It was obvious that his intentions were to go back to Konoha and rip the face off of whoever had made this decision. That happened to be the Hokage and despite how strong Naruto is, he was no match for someone like the Hokage.

"Calm down Naruto. I know you hate Konoha right now but nothing good is going to come from this. You need to think things through."

Naruto turned around and faced his idol. She wasn't sure if whether or not he was going to hit her in the hopes of breaking free. "B-b-b-but t-t-they took my sister away from me." Naruto choked out as he broke down into a full blown sob.

Every single time that he had been an arsehole to Azula sprang right back to the forefront of his mind. He hated how mean he was to his sister and now that he knew that she was genuine in all of her attempts to become his friend made him feel even worse.

He just wanted to go straight to wherever she was and give her the biggest hug and say that he was sorry for everything that he had ever done or said to her.

"It's okay Naruto-chan mummy's here for you." She didn't realise the words that were coming out of her mouth. She was just doing whatever the first instinct was to comfort Naruto.

Lady Katsuyu did however and she released the biggest smile she possibly could when she heard this. When she saw the bond the two Senju's were forming, she was beyond happy. As far as she was concerned, Naruto was the best thing that had ever happened to Tsunade.

"But why would they do that?" Naruto asked as he struggled to wrap his head around what he had just learnt.

"My guess is that the Sandaime separated the two of you at birth because if there were two children of the Yondaime and one had the Kyubi sealed inside of them, which do you think is going to have it easier?"

The second that the question was asked, Naruto knew the answer. With his experiences as the so called Kyubi jinchuuriki, he knew just what Konoha would do when given the choice.

No doubt it left a sour taste in his mouth but he knew that living the shinobi life was anything but fair… it just seemed that he always got the short end of the stick.

It was then that a massive blush appeared on the face of Naruto Senju. "Y-y-you say mummy's here for you." The blonde haired boy couldn't even muster up the courage to look into the eyes of Tsunade as he said this."

The words came rushing back into the mind of Tsunade and she too blushed up a storm. She had no idea why she said that in the heat of the moment.

On reflection though, she didn't exactly dispute the fact that she had said it. Naruto was an amazing kid as far as she was concerned. He was a child who was an orphan at birth and everyone needed a positive role model in her life. Over the past three weeks she had become incredibly attached to the kid despite that she hadn't known who he was a month ago.

Deciding to do what her clan and more importantly her line as the head of the clan, Tsunade gambled.

"I'm not backing down from what I said. I've really come to like you over the past three weeks we have known each other. I know we haven't known each other for very long but I hope that this is the start of something special." The fifty year old woman softly said with a small smile on her face. As she said this she softly held Naruto's hands in her own and rubbed her thumbs gently over his knuckles.

Naruto's head immediately shot up when he heard this. He stared into the eyes of Tsunade to make sure that she wasn't lying. For all of his life he had been hoping, no praying for someone to come and take him away from the hell that was his life.

Now that he had actually heard that someone was willing to do just that, it felt so surreal to the genin. In that scenario, Naruto did the only thing that he could think of.

He jumped into the arms of Tsunade and gave her the biggest hug he could muster. The new mother held her son tightly as if to say that Naruto was never going to leave her and the genin did not mind one bit.

As she held him, Tsunade placed a kiss on Naruto's forehead.

"I love you mum." It was the first time that he had ever said the words to anyone and he held them to such a high standard. Naruto didn't throw them out willy nilly.

"I love you too honey."

**x-X-x**

Sasuke had finished his training three days earlier under the guidance of Horus. The reasoning behind this was because Sasuke had trained with such an intensity that his body desperately needed some rest. If he had trained any more it would have burned out his body and it would have left him in a state where wasn't at peak performance.

Sasuke knew that if he was going to win the fight against Naruto in the final then he was going to have to be at his best because he knew that Naruto would be at nothing less.

The good thing about this though was that he finally had some time to wind down. No one was around and it gave Sasuke time to indulge in the one thing that absolutely no one knew about him, not even Naruto.

_Now that she's back in the atmosphere  
With drops of Jupiter in her hair  
She acts like summer and walks like rain  
Reminds me that there's a time to change  
Since the return from her stay on the moon  
She listens like spring and she talks like June_

As Sasuke pressed each key on the piano which Naruto thought was just for show, the lyrics to the song started coming out of his mouth. He remembered the words of his mother telling him to find a hobby as it takes the stress away from all of the struggles going on in life.

_But tell me, did you sail across the sun?_

_Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded_

_And that heaven is overrated?_

_Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star_

_One without a permanent scar?_

_And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?_

_Now that she's back from that soul vacation_

Sasuke had decided that he would take up the one hobby he could remember that both of his parents liked to honour their memories. At the moment he was playing his mother's favourite song on the eve of what would have been her birthday.

_Tracing her way through the constellation_

_She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo_

_Reminds me that there's room to grow_

_Now that she's back in the atmosphere_

_I'm afraid that she might think of me as plain ol' Jane_

_Told a story about a man who was too afraid to fly so he never leave land_

_But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?_

His mother was right as he thought about it. Whenever he felt unbridled rage, Sasuke came back to the piano that he and Naruto had moved from the clan head's house into his small apartment. The moment he sat down on the seat of his mother's piano, Sasuke felt at home and more importantly, at peace with himself.

_Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day_

_And head back to the Milky Way?_

_And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?_

_Was it everything you wanted to find?_

_And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?_

Sasuke pressed key after key almost perfectly on the piano. As the words came out of his mouth pretty much absentmindedly, the raven haired Uchiha wondered what life might be like had previous events not taken place. He wondered whether or not if he would still be the forgotten son.

_Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken?_

_Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you're wrong_

_Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance, five-hour phone conversation?_

_The best soy latte that you ever had and me_

Sasuke wondered what it was that they were doing up in heaven. He hoped that they were having a great time up there. He knew that with the chunin exams coming up shortly and with that, they would be watching his matches keenly. He only hoped that he could give a performance that would make them proud.

_But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?_

_Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day_

_And head back toward the Milky Way?_

_And tell me, did you sail across the sun?_

_Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded_

_And that heaven is overrated?_

_And tell me, did you fall for a shooting star,_

_One without a permanent scar?_

A single tear ran down the face of Sasuke Uchiha. "I really miss you mum."


	12. Holding too tightly

"What!?" Tsunade shouted as she looked over to Naruto. Never in a million years would she have assumed what she had just heard. Since it was coming from Naruto though, she decided that she had to believe it. She didn't want to alienate the boy by not believing a word that he said.

A grin formed on the face of Naruto. "Yeah! I have been using the Mokuton to create all different kinds of fruit and vegetables and selling them. Since the only cost is chakra, whatever I sell all goes to profit. The only cost I have is renting the store and that gets covered by the fact that I can stock something that's seasonal all year round."

Tsunade was flabbergasted when she heard this. She was beyond impressed at the little entrepreneur inside of Naruto. She could also see that it was his passion just by the way his face lit up as he was talking about it.

"I sell everything at a price which nobody else can match and since it doesn't cost anything to make the produce, I still make bucket loads of money from it."

"Good work gaki." Tsunade said with a smirk on her face as she ruffled the hair of Naruto. "Now I'm hungry with all this talk about food." The blonde woman stated and she gave a pointed look to Naruto.

Knowing what was being asked of him, Naruto placed both of his hands on the ground, channelled some chakra into them and voila! Right there in front of them sprouted an apple tree with tree with four ripe fruits ready and waiting for consumption.

Tsunade immediately got one and bit straight into it. Shizune didn't exactly hesitate either and also got an apple. Naruto meanwhile got two of them and had a Cheshire grin on his face. "What? I'm hungry too"

To his confusion, Tsunade started laughing and Shizune started giggling lightly. It was then that Naruto looked down at the apples in his hands and was surprised.

Katsuyu had already devoured one of the apples and was moving over to the second one. "Thank you Naruto-kun, you're too kind." Katsuyu said as she started eating the second apple.

It didn't take long at all before she slithered back onto the shoulder of Naruto after having polished off the second apple. Just to add salt onto the wound, Naruto's stomach started grumbling.

"Jeez if I knew that you would demolish those apples, I would have made more." Naruto said with a pout on his face.

"That would be very nice of you Naruto-kun and we don't just like apples, we like all types of fruit and vegetables." Lady Katsuyu stated in a passive aggressive tone.

Naruto merely sighed. Going through hand seals, Naruto placed his hands on the ground and created a row of trees filled with apples that were ready. He wasn't finished their though as he creating row after row of different foods. Katsuyu was particularly happy with the row of cucumbers.

As he finished and wiped a little bit of sweat off of his face, Naruto turned to the slug that was on his shoulder. "Are you happy now Lady Katsuyu?" Naruto questioned in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice.

"Yes, very much so Naruto-kun. Thank you for doing this." Katsuyu stated as she slid off of Naruto and headed for the food. As she did this, many more slugs came out of their hiding spots to feast on the delicacy put in front of them.

The blonde haired boy seriously wished that his summoning boss was more like his best friend Sasuke. That way, he would have absolutely no problem whatsoever in saying no to her. He hated how she killed him with kindness because he couldn't even put up a fight.

The sound of laughter was music to Naruto's ears. It wasn't good music but it was music nonetheless.

"Come on gaki, we have things to do, places to be and none of those will get done if we stand around here looking pretty." Tsunade said and Naruto nodded. There were many things that he still had to do before he left the hidden leaf village.

**x-X-x**

The trio of shinobi had left the land of the slugs and to Naruto's surprise, he found himself in a place that he did not recognize one bit. It did look really nice and tranquil though with the lake and all of the trees around it.

"Quit daydreaming kid, we have things to do." Tsunade stated as she broke Naruto out of his revere. Naruto immediately nodded and got to work. The first thing that he did was place his hands on the ground and use his sensory jutsu that worked so well thanks to the Mokuton bloodline limit.

To his surprise though, it felt like that he was standing next to two first grade academy students. Knowing that that was impossible, Naruto turned his head and gave a curious look to the two women standing beside him.

"How do you do that with your chakra?" Naruto questioned.

Tsunade smirked. "Compress your chakra into a tiny little ball and hold is as far inside of you as you possibly can. It makes it much harder for sensor Nin to find you."

Naruto nodded and attempted to do this as best as he could on his first try. Unfortunately for the blonde haired boy he was only able to suppress his chakra levels to those of a genin. He supposed that it was alright considering that he had special jonin level chakra reserves that were closing in on the tag of jonin.

"Come on Naruto-kun." Shizune said with calming look on her face and Naruto nodded. The trio of shinobi ran across the lake and headed for the large estate on the opposite side of it.

Naruto noticed that there was a lot of rust and that also, a lot of the plants had started growing over the top of the furniture and the brick walls. When he got closer, Naruto saw the logo that was on one of the walls. It was the logo of the Senju clan and Naruto's eyes went wide open. He was going to be entering a place that he had been thinking about for the past five years. He couldn't believe that it was actually going to happen.

He didn't have time to ponder this though as the second that they arrived at the inner sanctum of the compound, Tsunade placed her hand on the chakra door and watched it open. She continued just like she would if she was given a mission and headed straight for the Senju library albeit after making a slight detour.

"Here, fill up these with as many things as you possibly can." Tsunade stated as she handed out two massive hessian bags to both Naruto and Shizune.

"Okay, Tsunade-sama but what will you be doing?" Shizune questioned to her sensei.

"I will be going to the clan vault and gathering all of the sacred scrolls and also taking every cent that the clan owns." Tsunade stated to which both of her students nodded and got down to business.

Noticing that the gate just in front of the library was the same as the one that Tsunade had entered, Naruto placed his palm on the gate and channelled chakra into it. The gate took its time but with the help of Naruto, chakra enhanced strength, he was able to open the door enough so that both he and Shizune could walk into the library.

When they got inside the two shinobies' were greatly impressed with the vastness of the library. The tag of being the clan with a thousand skills was not lying one bit.

Even Shizune who had been in the room before was astonished. She broke out of her haze first though and quickly placed her two hessian bags down on the floor and pushed some chakra into the seals on them.

To her surprise the bags expanded to double their original size. She nudged Naruto to do the same and when that was done, the two of them started filling up the hessian bags with as many scrolls as they could.

When they realised that they couldn't fit all of them in, Naruto decided that they would leave the D-ranked jutsu scrolls behind. It wasn't as if either Shizune or Naruto couldn't just write up how to do one of the basic academy jutsus.

With all of the scrolls that they felt were necessary, Naruto and Shizune headed back out to the main courtyard. It was here that they found Tsunade waiting with one hessian bag and a gold plated scroll on her back.

"Here you go, wear one of these and make sure that none of you get caught." Tsunade said as she changed the genjutsu she was wearing to that of a young girl carrying a back pack.

Shizune had done a similar transformation as she turned herself into a nondescript androgynous teenager.

Naruto instead had chosen a different approach. He placed a cloak that was very familiar to ANBU shinobi and ran over to the gate. Quickly, Naruto placed his hands and sensed that there were no nearby shinobi. After he closed the door since he was the last man Naruto used his favourite jutsu and went underground.

It was a bit more of a nuisance traversing underground because of the weight on his back but he managed it fairly effectively.

The trio of ninjas found themselves at their meeting spot. It was the farm that Naruto had created inside the Uchiha compound after he found out that he had the Mokuton.

Tsunade didn't really like the idea of leaving her clan's jutsu scrolls in the home of the enemy but she trusted the fact that Naruto knew what he was doing.

Naruto opened the door to his apartment that he shared with Sasuke. As he walked in he heard the sounds of water flowing and went over to the door of the bathroom.

"Sasuke when you're done in there, I've brought some people over who I want you to meet." Naruto said and once he got a reply, he headed back down to the living room where Shizune and Tsunade were waiting.

Five minutes later, Sasuke came down the hallway wearing a simple black t-shirt and a pair of cotton pyjama pants. Just from looking at his best friend, Naruto could tell that Sasuke had put on a visible amount of muscle as his shirt was skin tight.

Sasuke meanwhile was staring at the two new people that were in his living room. He quickly glanced at the black haired woman as he sized her up. Knowing that staring at her for an elongated period of time was considered incredibly rude, especially around women, Sasuke turned his attention to the other person.

The second that he looked at the blonde woman, he knew exactly who she was. It was none other than Naruto's idol Tsunade Senju. The way she looked in real life put even the best pictures of her to shame as far as Sasuke was concerned. He couldn't help but drink in her body and since his body was entering puberty, there was a certain kind of reaction that occurred.

Sasuke quickly realised what he was doing and turned his attention from her body to her face. When he noticed the raised eyebrow which was daring him to speak, Sasuke's blush, which was something that hadn't ever been seen, only grew larger.

The raven haired Uchiha quickly shook the expression off of his face and looked at his best friend. He was surprised to see that Naruto had a murderous gaze and it was directed right at him.

Shizune meanwhile was desperately trying to prevent herself from giggling.

"I guess we now know you're not gay." Naruto said with a sour look on his face.

Sasuke merely stared back. "Now what is it that you brought these people here for?" Sasuke questioned as he returned back to his usual self.

Admittedly, Tsunade and Shizune were surprised with the attitude that the last Uchiha had.

"As I am sure you are well aware, this is Tsunade Senju. Also with us, this is her apprentice Shizune. During my time at the Slug clan, I met up with them and we started talking."

"Hn." Sasuke replied.

Had this been from anyone else, this would have bothered Naruto but since it was from Sasuke and he knew that it was the best he was going to get. "Tsunade-sensei has introduced me something that I think we should do." Naruto said to his best friend.

Sasuke was more concerned with the fact the way that Naruto had addressed Tsunade. Admittedly, he was a little bit jealous. For all of their time together as friends, they had always relied on one another as their teacher. Now though, it seemed Naruto had a proper sensei and he didn't really like it.

He tried to keep his face neutral but Tsunade saw the slight displeasure on the visage of Sasuke. "Go on." Sasuke merely said.

"Apparently the chunin exams are a tournament where millions of people gamble money on who they think will win. There's a whole host of different things you can bet on like the longest match in the tournament or who kills the most amount of people.

"Because of the fact that I am a "dead last shinobi" who is getting carried by his two teammates, the odds for me to make the finals are ridiculously high." As Naruto said this, Sasuke had an idea where the blonde haired boy was going with this.

"There are 100 to 1 odds for both of us to make the finals. That doesn't even count who wins our fight. This is guaranteed money." Naruto said with a massive grin on his face.

Sasuke himself was pleased at this. Of course he didn't exactly need next pay check so that he could pay for the roof over his head but having more money was never a bad thing.

"That's great and all but why don't you tell me the real reason why you brought these two here. They wouldn't have come here if it was just for you to tell me about gambling on ourselves during the chunin exams."

"Actually, they are here not because of the gambling specifically but more so what we are going to be spending the money on." When he heard this, Sasuke realised that Naruto wasn't planning on betting like 100 ryo or so. He was planning betting a large amount.

Naruto paused for a while as he tried to think of the words for what he was about to say next. "Sasuke, I've come to a decision. I have decided to abandon Konoha." Naruto said and he let this sink in before speaking once more. "Due to some information that I have found out, living in Konoha let alone being a shinobi for this village is simply not possible.

I really want you to come with me but I don't want you to feel forced into coming with me because I asked you to. I know you didn't cop the same amount of shit that I did growing up so you don't dislike Konoha as much as I do." Naruto said as he started rambling. The words were coming out at a fast pace because he wasn't thinking before speaking; he was wearing his heart on his sleeve.

"I've never actually liked Konoha. I'm merely indifferent to it amongst a whole host of other things. If whatever it was that you found was enough to make you willing to leave this village, then it is something that would make me willing to join you." Sasuke said and it was the most he had ever said in one go for over a year.

In response to this, Naruto crash tackled his best friend and gave him the biggest hug. "Get off me you retard." Sasuke said as he tried to shove Naruto off of him. The blonde haired boy wasn't having anything of it as he held onto it for as long as he felt necessary.

"I thought we agreed never to do anything like that again you spastic." Sasuke commented with a sneer on his face.

"Yeah well I thought that situation merited it. Sorry for not being like you in being unable to show affection you down syndrome." Naruto, never being one to pull punches said in response.

Sasuke merely gave a smirk back as Naruto grinned.

For Tsunade and Shizune who were watching on, they could see why these two were best friends despite the insults they were throwing at one another.

"The Fire Capital is the biggest casino place in the world and they except the highest bets of anywhere on the elemental continent. I'm going to be putting all the money I have on us to make the finals of the chunin exams. Tsunade-sensei is going to be putting all of the money that the Senju clan has in their safe on us making it to the last fight." When Naruto said this, Sasuke raised his brow and stared at the Senju clan leader.

All forms of the previous blush were gone as he studied the woman in front of him. "Tsunade hates Konoha just as much as we do Sasuke so she is willing to leave Konoha with us." This threw Sasuke for a loop. He didn't expect to hear that one of the Sannin was willing to depart Konoha. Of course there was Orochimaru but Sasuke thought that he was just touched in the head.

"Really?" Sasuke questioned with a raised eyebrow. Admittedly, he wasn't sure whether or not to believe this even though it was coming from Naruto.

"Yes, family is the most important thing in the world and Konoha has done its best to take that away from me. I'm not willing to let them take away my only remaining family." Tsunade said with a frown on her face. She remembered vividly the conversation that she had with her former sensei about the introduction of a medical ninja onto each team. She still blamed him for the deaths of both Nawaki and Dan as if there was a medic on the team, her two precious people would have been in much better conditions before she got to them.

Sasuke definitely agreed with the sentiment that Tsunade had. "So what was it that you three found out that made Naruto decide that now was the time to leave Konoha?" Sasuke questioned. He had been curious ever since Naruto hinted at it.

"I found out who my parents are." Naruto replied and Sasuke knew that this was a touchy subject for Naruto. It was why he decided to stay quiet until Naruto was ready to tell him what was bothering him.

"My parents are Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki." Sasuke's eyes went wide when he heard this. He knew exactly what Naruto was thinking. It wasn't so much the fact that his parents were so famous, it was more so the fact that he could have had a sister growing up and they took that away from him.

"If you're their child then how come they separated you two?" Sasuke questioned trying to somehow think of a way that Konoha could justify this.

"You know how I always got called demon and monster growing up and how it made us think that I had the Kyubi sealed inside of me?" Naruto questioned and he received a nod in response. "Well I think they sealed the Kyubi inside of Azula and used me as a scapegoat. I mean it would explain that red chakra that was helping her when I tried to heal her."

Sasuke's mind was buzzing through the information he had just received. Judging from the reaction Naruto got, he knew that if Azula got that then there was a high chance that she would share the same opinion as her brother. Losing the Kyubi was simply not an option so they had to do whatever they could to keep it in Konoha.

It was still completely fucked though in his opinion to separate two siblings at birth and he definitely agreed with Naruto on this decision.

"And what about Azula?" Sasuke commented after having processed this all.

Naruto didn't speak for a while. He was busy calming himself down.

"She can't come with us right now and I am not sure she would even want to anyway. If we were to kidnap her, it would be too high profile of a kidnapping and it would bring the wrath of the entirety of Konoha on us. I know where strong but we're not that strong yet."

"So you don't plan on telling her." Sasuke summarized.

"With a heavy heart… Yes, at least for now. I know how much she will hate me for doing this to her but it is the best thing for now. Hopefully there comes a time where when we meet up, she can find it in her heart to forgive me." Naruto said whilst wearing his heart on his sleeve.

"I am sure if she is anything like you Naruto-kun she will forgive you." Shizune said with a smile on her face. The dark haired woman hated the story of the two kids and knew that one day, they would reunite and she wished it was for the better.

"Alright then, so what do you want to do when you escape Konoha? I mean we can't just constantly keep on the move. We have to have a home."

It was then that Naruto thought for a moment. He had a good idea except all of the details were fuzzy at best. He had a goal and he was planning on getting a lot of money to help facilitate that goal but he had no idea how to go about putting everything into action.

"I want to create a place where no child has to grow up living the lives that we had to. I want home to be a place where people don't have to suffer any form of unjust discrimination. I want to a village where everyone is treated as an equal. Everything is earned by merit and you earned not because you have connections but because of your hard work." Naruto said with a look of pride on his face.

"So a hidden village?" Sasuke idly commented.

Naruto's eyes widened when he heard this. "I suppose I never thought of it like that but I guess that since we are shinobi, then this place would have to be a hidden village to provide an income to people." Naruto said with more conviction as time went on.

As he mulled over the idea in his mind, Sasuke didn't actually mind the sound of that. He was apathetic to most things in life but one thing he didn't like was hearing stories about kids with unfortunate childhoods. The thought of someone going through something similar to what he had, left a sour taste in his mouth. Plus, it would also give him the chance to properly restore the honour of the Uchiha clan. An Uchiha clan that distanced itself from all past complications and had a fresh start was something he could get on board with.

As she heard this, Tsunade couldn't help but think that she was looking at the second coming of Madara and Hashirama. She only hoped that Sasuke only inherited the skill level and not the personality of his ancestor.

_Creating a whole new hidden village though, well at least life is going to be interesting._

"But I thought you just wanted to live off the land. You wouldn't be able to do that if you became the Kage of a new village. You would have to have a day job." Sasuke said as the personality of Naruto seemed to contradict what he was saying. The thought of doing something as monotonous as working at a desk for eight hours a day for the rest of your life was not something that Sasuke was interested in at all.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to become the Kage or anything like that. I just want to grow some good food, cook it and live stress free. I reckon a position like an advisor or something would be good though." Naruto responded but this left a big question mark.

"Well then who would be the leader of the village?" Sasuke questioned.

Tsunade immediately piped up when she heard this. "You don't even have a snowball's chance in hell of getting me to be the Kage. You two are on your own for this." Shizune nodded in agreement. She would never agree to do something like that.

"Alright, so we need to find a leader." Naruto said, frustrated. He turned and gave a questioning look to Sasuke. In response he got a stare that spelt death.

"Where are you going to put this village Naruto-kun? I don't think many places would be willing to start a hidden village." Shizune questioned to which Naruto struggled to think of an answer. He couldn't

"Okay, I don't know, I mean I just had this thought but it's obvious all the major and even most of the small countries would be out of the equation since they already have villages. I mean it's not something that we have to come to a decision by the end of this conversation. I just think that this would be something that was worthwhile and we could leave a legacy just like our ancestors did." Naruto said as he tried to justify himself.

Out of everyone here who was listening to the proposal, Shizune was the one who was conflicted the most. Admittedly, she hadn't had any of the emotional roubles that the people around her had had but she felt that they were being a bit harsh to Konoha. Just because there were a few bad people didn't mean they were all bad!

Tsunade though didn't mind what she was hearing from the two genin beside her. After having moved around for the last decade, the thought of settling down in a place that she could call home sounded pretty good to her. With the location of a hidden village still up for grabs, Tsunade knew that they would be looking to her for guidance since she was the most senior ninja.

A nice beach front home sounded pretty good to the legendary sucker.

**x-X-x**

"See ya kid." Tsunade said as she gave Naruto a rather elongated hug. "I'll be back before the start tomorrow."

Naruto nodded. He would have said more but because Sasuke was around, he didn't want to look like a little bitch in front of his best friend. He knew that Sasuke would be giving him shit as it was and he didn't want to add fuel to the fire.

And with that said, Tsunade broke the hug. She quickly followed this up by casting a genjutsu over herself and Shizune followed suit. With a final wave, the two shinobi left the Uchiha compound with the capital of the land of fire as their destination. Tsunade was treating this as if she was on a mission and she set a pace that Shizune kept up with although she was finding it tough.

On each of their respective backs were large gold plated scrolls. Both of them housed large sums of money and she was taking no chances. She had even left the secret jutsus of the Senju clan at the Uchiha compound as a sign of good faith.

Of course they were in Naruto's room but it was the gesture that mattered, not the specifics.

As they headed south east of Konoha, the two women towards the peninsula of Konoha, the journey that normally took six hours only took two. As they entered the city, there was only one place which was the destination for the two. They went to the biggest casino in the entire continent.

As they walked into the door, Tsunade immediately went to the front counter. "Get your manager out here."

As the bet handler looked at the face of the person who had just said this to him, he quickly realised that he was in for a world of hurt if he didn't do what he was asked of.

The man walked out of his small office in the backroom and he grinned when he saw who it was that had asked for his presence. "Hi Tsunade-sama, it's been a long time. Have you come here to bet on the chunin exams?" he said with a smile on his face. He could already see his bonus.

"You're damn right I have! I'm going to be betting10.5 million ryo!" Tsunade said as she drew all of the attention in the room on herself. Everyone gasped at that. No one expected anyone had that much money let alone had that much to spare on gambling.

Even the manager balked when he heard this. "Uh, Tsunade-sama, I don't have the clearance to be able to accept a bet of that magnitude. We will have to go into head office and speak with the director."

Tsunade nodded when she heard this and both she Shizune calmly followed the man to a set of stairs. Two minutes passed by and the two kunoichi found themselves walking into the office of BetFire Limited.

"So what seems to be the issue Kaori-san that you have come here?" A large middle aged man questioned to his subordinate.

"Tsunade-sama here has requested to put a bet on for 10.5 million ryo on the chunin exams." The manager stated to which the director grinned massively. He had won enough money off of the woman previously to know about her ridiculously bad gambling ability.

"Go for it Kaori-san; whatever she wants to bet on, she is more than welcome to." Kaori got the answer that he was looking for.

"Right sir. Tsunade-sama, if you would please follow me back down to my office, we can sort the bet out." When she heard this, Tsunade smirked.

The major difference was that she was not betting herself. She was merely acting as the money holder. This bet was all the idea of Naruto and Sasuke and thus meant that as far as she was concerned, her luck was going to affect the bet.

When they were in Kaori's office, the man sat down in his seat and gestured for Tsunade and Shizune to do the same. They did this after having taking the massive scrolls off of their backs.

"So what type of bet is it that would you like to place Tsunade-sama?" Admittedly, he assumed that if it was with such a large sum of money, it would be a singles match in the first round. That was what he would do given the situation.

"I am doing a multi bet." The second that the blonde haired woman said this, he knew that the money was as good as his.

"I bet that Sasuke Uchiha of the hidden leaf village and Naruto Uzumaki of the hidden leaf village to make it to the grand finale."

Now Kaori wasn't a shinobi but since he had a vested interest in the large tournament, he knew that Sasuke was a low priced favourite and Naruto was a high priced longshot. The combination of the two would create ridiculous odds.

He was indeed right as he used the calculator on his desk to come up with the odds. "Okay so that comes out to two hundred to one." Kaori stated as he read the numbers off of his calculator.

Neither Tsunade nor Shizune could hold back their shock. Tsunade being the gambler she was thought she had a good grasp of how the business worked. The expected payout was double what she had guessed and she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Deal." Tsunade said almost too quickly.

"That's great to hear but before we get this bet finalized, I just want to call my boss once more to let him know the odds and if he still wants to go ahead with this." Kaori said to which Tsunade grumbled.

It was a quick message sent via the radio frequency they had set up and in a minute, the deal was good to go through. "If you will bear with me, I will quickly write up a contract stating the bet for both parties. Normally I don't do this but for a bet of this magnitude I will."

Once this was done, Tsunade went to the bank with the man to deposit the money. He couldn't believe his eyes when Tsunade and Shizune unloaded all of the money out from the scrolls.

"If this bet goes through, you better have the money waiting for me or I will kill you, your boss and there won't be anyone in the world that will be able to trace it back down to me." Tsunade said and with the threat left hanging in the air, the two kunoichi left the fire capital for Konoha.

**Author's Note: I got destroyed at pre-season training a few days ago and now have a cracked rib. Fun times…**


	13. Afraid to lose control

Thanks to the fact that they had had three days' rest, both Sasuke and Naruto were feeling at their maximum and couldn't wait for the final exam to start.

With everything locked up in their apartment, Naruto and Sasuke headed out for the colosseum. When they got their and signed in, they found out that they weren't the first people to arrive.

Naruto in particular was in a trance the second that he saw his sister Azula. He didn't know what to say or do. Thankfully she was on the opposite side of the group of shinobi so he didn't have to say anything to her.

Azula though was a little bit creeped out at the trance like state Naruto seemed to be in as he stared at her. She was going to have a word with him after his match which just so happened to be first.

Thankfully though, they didn't have to wait all that long for the other competitors to make it to the arena. Once everyone was done, it was time for a speech by the venerable Sandaime Hokage. Eventually as the competitors left the arena and went up into the competitors' area.

All this left was Gemna Shiranui, Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuga.

Naruto noticed that as he looked at the girl, he couldn't help but wonder how someone could become so shy. She had even gone to the point of placing the hood of her jacket over her head. It seemed as if she just wanted to tune out the whole world.

Naruto didn't care about the obvious horrendous parenting on display through the girl though. He had a fight to win.

"Go!" Gemna called out to the two shinobi.

"Get ready because you are going one on one with the great one." Naruto boasted loud enough so that all of Konoha could hear him. He was going to great pleasure in showing Konoha just how much they had dropped the ball in treating him like a piece of shit.

Naruto sped off at a speed which forced Hinata to instantly activate her Byakugan. This wasn't even so that she could use the gentle fist. This was merely so that she could have a better chance at avoiding the attacks of Naruto who was moving at a fast pace.

It wasn't as fast as Neji or Sasuke showed during their preliminary fights but it was definitely faster than what Kiba was capable of using in the spars that they had had with one another.

Naruto and launched a punch at the girl. Thankfully for the sake of the spectator's and more importantly, the Hyuga clan, Hinata dodged the attack. Naruto went on the attack for a whole thirty seconds of intense fighting without managing to land a single blow on the girl.

He knew he was making it hard for himself by solely engaging the Hyuga clan heir in a taijutsu spar but he wanted to show off just how far he had come from being the supposed dead last.

Naruto however managed to turn the tide of the fight as he slipped through the guard of Hinata and delivered a haymaker punch right to the sternum of Hinata.

The attack was fuelled by a chakra enhanced punch and was powerful enough to crack a rib of Hinata.

The girl who wore a beige coloured jacket was flung to the ground and before she could even hit the ground, she was wheezing, struggling to get any form of air into her lungs.

She was winded.

This didn't stop the little girl though. She didn't like the way that Naruto had treated Kiba during their fight despite the fact that she used to have a crush on Naruto.

This was a fight and she knew that if she didn't get up, then not only would she be shaming her family with her lacklustre display but she would also be quitting on herself. She knew that she didn't have much confidence if any at all. She had made amends with herself over this during the previous month. This didn't mean that she was going to rest on her laurels and be satisfied with her improvement though.

No, she wanted to improve even more. She had made it to the finals of the chunin exams! Maybe then her father wouldn't be so mean and uncaring to her.

Hinata struggled to get up off the ground but she was determined to do so. As she did this, Hinata placed her hands on the fluffy parts of her hood. "I-i-I w-will not lose!" Hinata said with more confidence as she the words came out of her mouth. To compound on this, Hinata pulled her hood down for the first time in ages.

The veins around her eyes stood proudly as the pale eyed girl was determined to the fight against Naruto. She even went on the front foot and started attacking Naruto despite the pain she felt from her chest. She knew that if this was a real mission, the enemy wouldn't give her a chance to get back up off the ground and that was something that she had to punish.

Just like when Naruto was going on the offensive, the defender managed to find a way to dodge the attack. One minute into the rushing offense, Hinata managed to score a glancing blow on the Naruto's right forearm.

Naruto felt the pain coming through his arm and it was only then that he realised just how deadly the gentle fist was. He struggled to properly control his chakra in his right hand and that was only from a glancing blow.

He knew that he had to end this fight before Hinata could get any more hits on him. Naruto didn't know what it was about that Gaara who he had to fight in the next round (he was confident Gaara would pass) but there was something odd about that boy that put Naruto off. The only time he had felt something similar to this was when he fought Orochimaru in the forest of death.

When she got the hit on Naruto, Hinata grew more confident in her abilities and pressed on to go for that knockout blow. She had just the jutsu in mind to win this. All she needed to do was get into position.

That didn't go according to plan as when she extended her palm to give an injection of her own chakra into Naruto, Naruto launched out his left hand and decided to trade blows with her.

Hinata knew that she couldn't do this because whatever Naruto was doing with the chakra in his hands, it made his punches that much more potent. She tried to get out of the way but it was too late.

Naruto once again punched her right in the sternum once more and he heard a cracking noise. He knew that he had broken bones in the girl but he continued on. He had to fight until either Hinata quit or the proctor deemed that the contest was over.

Naruto didn't let Hinata have time to herself this time to get up and stabalize herself. He jumped and knelt on Hinata's hips and delivered a punch to the jaw. All it took was one for Naruto to knock the girl out into the land of sleep. He gave one more punch for good measure before Gemna called the fight over with Naruto the winner.

Blood was seeping out of the mouth of Hinata with her limp body on the ground motionless.

What Naruto didn't know was that the heiress of the Hyuga clan was fan favourite. A lot of people realised how kind she was and hoped that she would win. There was also a large amount of people who had betted on the outcome of the match and they were not happy at all with the outcome.

All of this resulted in Naruto getting booed. He didn't care though. He had guessed that he would be getting this reaction like this so he had steeled himself.

"Good work Naruto, you did really good down there." When Naruto heard the voice of his sister, all of the negative emotions that he had had regarding the crowd went out the window. He turned his head from facing the ground to the face of Azula and saw her big, bright smile.

He couldn't take it. All of the emotions that he felt regarding the rather harsh treatment he had given his sister came back to the surface.

In an action that surprised everyone except for Sasuke, especially Azula, Naruto walked up to the girl without saying anything and gave her the biggest hug she had ever received. She was completely baffled by the hug but she didn't mind it one bit.

There was something about wrapping her arms around Naruto that felt like everything that she had to worry about went out the window. He was like her guardian angel. She had no idea why she was thinking this, maybe because it was the first boy to give her a hug that was neither Jiraiya nor Kakashi that she actually liked as a person.

"S-sorry about doing that Azula-chan and I am also really sorry for all the times I was mean to you when I was younger." Naruto said as he gained a bit of confidence and looked Azula in the eyes.

He could see the blush on the face of his sister and at that moment, he thought it was incredibly cute. "It's okay Naruto-kun." Azula said with a bashful smile on her face.

Shikamaru who was watching this couldn't believe what his eyes were telling him. All throughout the academy he remembered Naruto hating Azula and now it looked like they were best friends if not boyfriend and girlfriend. "Tch, troublesome." Shikamaru said before turning his attention back to the arena below.

Gaara meanwhile was looking on with a calculating gaze.

"Will Shino Aburame and Gaara Sabaku please come down here for the next match?" Gemna called out to which the two shinobi made their way down to the arena but not before Gaara stared directly at Naruto.

"So how was your training with Kakashi-niisan!?" Azula questioned with a look of excitement on her face. She was eager to see what else her two teammates knew. Just from what she saw from Naruto was enough to let her know that neither of them had been slacking in their training.

"We didn't train with Kakashi." Naruto replied.

"What! Why not?" Azula questioned with obvious shock on her face. She thought that they would have jumped at the chance to get taught ninjutsu by Kakashi. She knew she would have if it had not been for her godfather coming back for a while.

"Well he had a pretty bad track record as a sensei if you could call him that. I mean the only thing that he taught us was teamwork and that was something that we learnt much better as the three of us on our mission anyway."

Azula had to admit that Naruto was right. Kakashi-niisan hadn't really taught them anything. Still, he was her pseudo big brother and she had to defend him. "Kakashi-niisan… he's not really that good with people. I mean it took me ages to get him to open up to me and I am his sensei's student!"

"So, if he is that bad, he should look being a sensei like a job and as a time to relax. There are lives depending on his teaching or rather lack thereof." Sasuke commented. He completely agreed with Naruto.

"Alright, so if you didn't train with Kakashi-niisan, then who did you train with?" Azula said as she knew if she didn't stop the conversation about Kakashi right then, it would lead to nothing but bad mouthing her big brother in all but blood.

"That's a secret Azula-chan. You're just going to have to guess after watching us fight." Naruto grinned at the girl.

"Aww that's not fair." She pouted in response.

"Winner by forfeit is Gaara Sabaku." Gemna said as he used chakra to enhance his vocal projection.

As the proctor said this, all three of Team Seven instantly turned around to the arena. What they saw was Gaara holding his head as he squatted. It was creepy in the eyes of Azula how he was constantly screaming mother.

"You're next Uzumaki. I don't care if you forfeit. I will kill you and prove my existence."

Naruto merely shrugged it off. He had enough confidence in his own abilities that he could win this fight. Azula though was concerned. She got this weird feeling from Gaara and she had no idea what it was. The only thing that she could confidently say was that Gaara was strong, real strong and she wondered just how strong Naruto had become.

"Will Sasuke Uchiha and Temari Sabaku please come to the arena." Gemna stated out loudly.

Sasuke steeled himself as he knew that this would be his first real chance to break free from the constant comparisons with his elder brother that had plagued him ever since he was born.

"Good luck Sasuke." Azula said with a grin on her face. The thought of fighting Sasuke in the semi-finals of the tournament was something that she was eagerly anticipating.

Sasuke merely nodded. He didn't respond as his mind was too busy focusing on his upcoming match. Admittedly, he hadn't really studied much up on Temari apart from the fact that she used a fan to propel her wind ninjutsu. The second he saw that, Sasuke knew that he had this fight in the bag.

A second later and Sasuke found himself standing right across from his opponent. He saw a determined look on her face. It was obvious to him that she wanted to prove that she was as better than him when that simply wasn't going to happen as far as he was concerned.

"Begin!" Gemna called out as he moved to the side. Out of all of the first round matches this one was the one that he was looking forward to the most. The Kazekage's daughter against the last member of the Uchiha clan; it was a punters dream.

Said Kazekage was taking a keen interest in this fight ever since he had failed in applying the cursed seal to young Sasuke-kun. He wanted to see what else the young Uchiha had learnt in one month's time. After all, a strong body was essential to the transfer of his soul.

Meanwhile the second that Temari heard the go ahead, she immediately pulled out her fan and swung it in Sasuke's direction. There was only one problem that the blonde haired girl ran into was the fact that Sasuke was no longer standing in the spot where she had aimed her fan.

Sasuke had instead dodged to the right and was rapidly closing the distance between the two of them. Despite all the preparation that Temari had put herself through, she still panicked when Sasuke rushed her at a speed which beat the ultimate defence of her brother.

Temari quickly swung her fan in the opposite direction as a means to counteract the incoming advances of Sasuke. Sasuke merely dodged the incoming blast which levelled the trees behind him.

As much as she didn't want to admit it, as time went on, Temari saw that the distance between herself and Sasuke was shortening. What made this even worse was the fact that she assumed that Sasuke was using far less of his energy to move around the arena floor in comparison to her keeping him from getting close to her.

Sweat was falling from her hair as he she poured chakra into her attacks. The effort was draining the girl from Sunagakure. Eventually there was more of a gap between Temari's attacks and Sasuke had enough time to close the distance between the two.

There was lighting which cackled around the fist of Sasuke and he intended to give a pain inducing punch to the blonde haired genin. Thankfully for her sake though, she managed to bring her fan up and protect her face from getting hit.

The sound that came from her fan getting hit by Sasuke's lightning covered hand was not one that she liked all that much. Her fan had taken the brunt of the damage and despite the fact that it was made from the finest steel that Suna had to offer, there was a dent in the metal.

Sasuke continued on. He knew that if he let up, that his enemy would have a chance of getting back into the fight. As far as he was concerned, now that the fight was a close ranged one, the match was as good as over.

The second punch that Sasuke gave to the enemy was much like the first one. Sasuke's punch connected with the fan. He managed to hit the same exact spot as before and the fan buckled under the weight. There was a serious bend in the weapon that would take a long time at a dedicated weapon smith workshop to fix.

It was much the same for the third and fourth hit. Temari idly wondered as she struggled to stay in the fight if Sasuke was simply trying to destroy her weapon. The fifth attack that Sasuke launched was the one that differed. Sasuke launched a sweeping low kick which made Temari horizontal. Sasuke followed up dropping his heel into the face of Temari and she smashed the back of her head into the ground and the rest of her body followed after.

There was a clear snap noise the second that Sasuke's foot connected with the face of Temari. The fact that she had a broken nose didn't stop her from getting back up off of the ground and into a fighting position. Sasuke was admittedly impressed. He wasn't even sure that this was something that even Azula would do. He knew for a fact that a fight in the chunin exams which had Ino getting a broken nose would immediately forfeit.

He supposed that deserved some sort of respect. Sasuke decided at that point to end the fight right then and not drag it out any longer.

Before Temari could even react in thanks to still being dizzy due to her concussion, the woman from Suna was unable to stop it when Sasuke appeared inside her guard, grabbed her throat with one hand, used his other to place Temari's left hand over his head so that it rested on his back.

With his left hand, Sasuke grabbed the skirt of Temari and yanked it up in conjunction with lifting her by her throat. When he had lifted the girl in his hands up as high as his reach would allow, Sasuke choke slammed the girl in his hands down onto the dirt.

Temari was lights out the second her body slammed into the ground. Her limp form offered no movement and Gemna Shiranui had no choice but to call the match in favour of Sasuke.

"Winner of this fight is Sasuke Uchiha." Gemna stated to the crowd who started cheering loudly as they loved what they had just seen. Sasuke merely turned his back to the crowd and headed up to the area where his two teammates were standing.

"Congratulations Sasuke!" Azula said with a big smile on her face. Sasuke responded with a small smile on his face. She knew that that was all she would ever get from Sasuke so she was content with that. She saw the nod that was shared between Naruto and Sasuke and was happy that her team was finally together as one.

**x-X-x**

For Kakashi who was in the stands, he couldn't be more impressed with the performances of his two students who had been on show so far even if he tried. The only problem with this happened to be the fact that he had absolutely nothing to do with the development of either Naruto or Sasuke.

During the month that he had off from everything, Kakashi took time to reflect on his teaching methods it was there that he realised that he indeed had been in the wrong.

Admittedly he had been waiting for them to come to him and ask for training. He wanted them to know that they couldn't do everything on their own and that it was okay to ask for help.

Naruto and Sasuke were right. That was the wrong approach because the only thing it did was alienate Kakashi from his team. Both Naruto and Sasuke did not like him one bit and he knew that they had absolutely every right to be furious with him.

He had been constantly late to every single training session by no less than three hours each time. He had done nothing to deserve the title of sensei as a civilian kid could have grasped the idea of working together as being better for completing missions than working individually. He didn't teach them anything in terms of increasing their own skill sets and even left the team work up to the three genin to figure out for themselves.

They even felt the need that they had to take matters into their own hands by requesting a mission outside of the village because they never thought that they would have an opportunity to improve. Considering the fact that it had taken them four months to get to this point, Kakashi believed that they had every right to think this way. Of course the way that they went about this was completely wrong but that was a topic for a later date.

When the exams were over, Kakashi vowed to himself that he would become worthy of the title of sensei and teach his students any and everything that they could possibly want. He would even teach Sasuke the chidori.

**x-X-x**

It was now time for the fight between Azula and Neji. Out of all of the first round fights, this was the one that everyone had come to see. From all of the speculation going into these fights, Neji was a generational prodigy for the Hyuga clan and was even stronger than the heiress. Azula was merely the daughter of the stronger man in the recent history of Konoha so she was expected to be powerful in her own right.

"Begin!" The proctor of the fight called out as the two shinobi prepared for their fight. Azula started things off by going through hand seal after hand seal.

"Fuuton: Renkudan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet.)" Azula called out as she unleashed he jutsu at her enemy. She didn't exactly have to worry about wasting chakra because for some reason, she had an endless supply of the stuff.

If the attack hit, great. Azula wasn't planning on that to happen though as she used this jutsu as a way to see how her opponent would react. There was no real surprise when Neji decided to move out of the way.

Much like the fight that Temari had with Sasuke, one shinobi attempted to make the fight a close ranged one and the other wanted to keep it at a long ranged fight. The difference in this being that Azula had a much larger supply of chakra and wouldn't get tired so quickly.

The blonde haired girl continued to use the same air jutsu to keep Neji at bay as he attempted to get closer to her. She had experience fighting with fast shinobi as she was on the same team as Sasuke Uchiha but she hadn't sparred with him since her academy days and she knew that that counted for nothing.

Neji dodged yet another attack and continued forward. He knew that he was not going to get anywhere with staying at this pace so he increased it with a bust of adrenaline.

Azula was shocked with the increase in speed. This did not stop her from going through a different set of hand seals as she saw Neji rapidly shortening the distance between the two.

The shoulder blade level golden blonde hair rapidly grew in length as well as becoming as strong as steel. Neji was at a loss despite the fact that he could see what was going on. He struggled to comprehend that someone could grow their hair and use it as a weapon.

In the space of four seconds, the hair had stretched from Azula, wrapped around the left leg of Neji and flung the boy into one of the outlying trees. Azula followed up this by launching most of the threads which were needle like in the direction of Neji through the use of chakra.

As he was in mid-air, Neji managed to regain control of his senses and prepared himself. He used the ligaments and tendons in his knees to great effect as he created a makeshift springboard and catapulted himself in the direction of Azula.

Along the way he copped a fair few needles which embedded themselves into his skin but the pain was nothing that he couldn't fight through.

The move was something that surprised Azula and she did her best to prepare herself but unfortunately it was not to be. Neji managed to get two hits in with his jyuken taijutsu style before Azula managed to counteract the attack.

Azula used chakra to make her hair surround her body. There was a blockage in her arm but it was nothing that using a large amount of chakra couldn't fix.

Neji meanwhile saw this and knew that it would do no good for him to get his hand crushed. He knew how powerful that hair jutsu of Azula was just from a few of the needles.

Once the hair covered her whole entire body, Azula launched yet another barrage of her needle hair at Neji.

The brown haired boy did his best to dodge the incoming attack but there were a few that caught the left side of his body. Thankfully though after a few seconds of being released from the main body of hair, the chakra dissipated and the hair turned back to normal.

There were a few pricks along his body where blood was starting to come out. Azula was doing a little bit better but she was not unscathed. Neji had missed one of the tenketsu points in the girl and hit one of the blood vessels under the skin in her arm and caused it to burst.

Neji was panting as his lungs were working overtime to get oxygen through his body. Despite his physical fitness, the fight was so frenetic that Neji never had any time to reduce his heart rate. He had been working at a constant eighty percent of his maximum heart rate for the last ten minutes.

Azula was slightly better in the fact that moulding chakra didn't cause as much stress on the heart and lungs as moving at a constant, high pace did. This wasn't enough to prevent any sweat from coming from her brow.

Seeing that what she was doing now wasn't getting her anywhere, Azula decided that it was time for a change in the way she planned to take down Neji. She immediately went and created three clones and had them surround Neji in a diamond.

"Fuuton: Renkudan! (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet.)" Azula called out yet again as she released a jutsu. It just went to show just how much chakra the girl had flowing through her system and she could do this and not come out the end of it with chakra exhaustion.

The Hyuga heir had to catch his breath and was therefore unable to move so that the clones of Azula were unable to position themselves around him. When he saw the four respective jutsus coming his way, Neji didn't become fearful of what might happen. Instead, his expression stayed the same as he performed a jutsu of his own.

The kaiten was a sight to behold and no one in the colosseum was more surprised to see the usage of this particular jutsu than Hiashi Hyuga. The thought of a member of the branch clan being able to use the kaiten was truly baffling to him. It just went to show just how skilled his nephew was.

Neji didn't have time to gloat about his ability to use a jutsu that was supposedly forbidden to him as Azula launched the same jutsu at Neji. It forced the boy to continue using the chakra demanding kaiten to dodge the incoming attacks.

It was only now that he realised just how much of a bind he was in. he had assumed that whatever the red chakra was inside of Azula, it was the reason why she could spam jutsu after jutsu and not get tired.

This happened twice more before Neji began thinking to himself. _This is fate telling me that I am not to win today. It was the fate of the yondaime's daughter that she was to succeed._

Before Azula launched yet another, Neji spoke up. "Proctor, I forfeit." Neji called out. He was out of chakra and he knew that he would never be able to get in close to Azula where he could use his superior taijutsu to win the match.

The blonde haired girl stopped her attack and turned her attention to the proctor. She wanted to wait for conformation before she stopped the fight. When she did get it, she jumped for joy whilst the shadow clones dispelled themselves.

* * *

**Author's Note: Re-broke my ribs at the gym so now I have to have two months off from all physical activity. At this point the pain isn't even the worst bit. Not being able to play sport or train for two months is much worse!**


End file.
